Yoann Maestri and Mathieu Bastareaud crossed for second-half tries as France got back to winning ways in this year’s RBS 6 Nations with a convincing victory over Italy in Rome.
Philippe Saint-Andre’s side were never at their best in an error-strewn encounter but they did enough against the Azzurri to claim their second win of this year’s Championship.
Maestri went over early in the second half, Bastareaud crashed over with the last play of the game and a combination of the boots of Camille Lopez, Scott Spedding and replacement Jules Plisson contributed the other 19 points.
French confidence was low after defeats to Ireland and Wales while Italy were aiming for consecutive wins in this Championship for only the second time in their history after winning in Scotland a fortnight ago.
But despite having beaten Les Bleus the last two times they came to Rome, Italy were held scoreless on Sunday by a France side desperate to avoid a third defeat in a row.
Italy fly-half Kelly Haimona, who had started the first three games of the Championship, pulled out with injury 24 hours before the clash and his replacement Tommaso Allan appeared to tweak a groin in the warm up.
Initially Allan’s heavily strapped leg coped well with the early exchanges of kick tennis as both sides felt each other out in the Stadio Olimpico.
Noa Nakaitaci, making his France debut on the wing as one of eight changes made by Saint-Andre, collected one of Allan’s early cross-field kicks and found himself with clear space in front of him down the left-hand side.
Indeed it was only a superb covering tackle from Sergio Parisse, making a record 112th appearance for Italy, that stopped the Fijian-born flyer from streaking clear for a dream debut try.
But that early charge was a false dawn for what the first half was to serve up.
Allan’ re-aggravated his groin problem dragging a straightforward penalty attempt wide of the posts as the Italian problems with goalkicking in 2015 continued.
Luciano Orquera, the orchestrator of Italy’s win over Les Bleus two years ago, was therefore introduced but he was unable to complete his first job as a long-range penalty cannoned back off the post.
The conditions certainly were not helping but the rugby on show was scrappy to say the least, handling errors punctuating a first quarter that Italy dominated territorially if not on the scoreboard.
The kicking curse looked like it might be catching as Scott Spedding fired France’s first penalty attempt wide as well.
The duties were then restored to fly-half Camille Lopez and either side of the half-hour mark he knocked over two penalties for the game’s first points and France were in a somewhat undeserved 6-0 lead.
Having snuck into the lead, Philippe Saint-Andre’s side finally started to play as both Lopez and Spedding made clean breaks that came to nothing.
Lopez appeared to injure his knee in his sharp break however and it was Spedding who re-took the kicking duties just before the break after France’s scrum had got an impressive nudge on.
The full-back was on target for a 9-0 lead as both sides went in after a forgettable first half.
The fly-half injury curse was now critical for both sides, Lopez’s knee problem forcing him off at the break and seeing the return of Jules Plisson to the France stand-off position and straight after the re-started he kicked France into a 12-0 lead.
With a comfortable points cushion in hand, France finally started to click and the game’s first try was not far away.
And it was Spedding that created it, the full-back bursting clear into the Italian 22 after fielding a deep kick and when the ball was well worked to the right, lock Maestri was on hand to dot down.
Plisson slotted the extras and then added a penalty before the hour mark as the dominant French scrum saw the visitors go 22-0 ahead.
In the final 20 minutes Italy huffed and puffed in an attempt to muster a comeback but barring a couple of attacking lineouts they never really threatened.
France meanwhile seemed content to protect what they had before Bastareaud came off the bench to crash over under the posts in the final play and give France some extra cheer ahead of daunting trip to Twickenham next weekend.
