Australia 'A' shatter Baa-baas

Australia 'A' comfortably beat the French Barbarians 42-12 in Bordeaux on Tuesday in front of 15,000 people.

The Wallaby team pulled away slightly in the first half with tries from captain David Croft and Tatafu Polota-Nau, plus three penalties from Cameron Sheperd giving them a half-time 23-12 lead.

Adam Ashley-Cooper, Mat Rogers and Hugh McMeniman all dotted down in the second period though, without reply from their hosts, leaving the Wallabies convincing winners.

The French barbarians scored all their points in the first half, with two tries from Biarritz hooker Benoit August and a conversion from Jeff Dubois.

With 13 players under the age of 24, and three of them yet to even play a Super 12 match, the 30 point victory was a valuable start to Australians' year-end tour, and one coach Eddie Jones was happy with.

"We're pretty pleased with the effort and I think we showed enough tonight to indicate that this group of players has the potential to go further in the game.  How far further the next 12 months will decide for a lot of them, but certainly there is some good raw potential among this group of players," said Jones.

"Maybe we've been able to find some players who have the potential to go further, so we'll work very hard on this tour to develop them and whether they play Test rugby on this tour or not will depend on how quickly they develop.

"There are some players there who showed some good skill in certain aspects of their game but in other aspects, that are more important in Test matches, they need to have a considerable improvement to be Test players.

"I think we saw today a lot of players who will be in the World Cup Squad.  How they develop will vary, but I think if we can get five, six, seven or eight of those players coming through to be genuine Test players then we'll be pretty happy."

Asked who he thought were the players that stood out the most, Jones says he was impressed with a number of them.

"There were a range of players who played pretty well.  Obviously the hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau showed that he's a skillful player, but still has some work to do on his set piece," said Jones.

"I thought the whole back row acquitted themselves pretty well.  Scott Fava at Number 6 and David Croft at openside flanker were good, and then Leroy Houston who has got some good ball running ability.

"In the backs, I thought most of them played pretty well.  Lloyd Johansson is a young kid who certainly has the potential to be a much better player than he is at the moment."

Good in attack and committed in defence, the only hiccup for Australia 'A' were the two rolling mauls that resulted in tries to the French Barbarians, a positive according to Jones.

"It's an area we need to get more and more experience in.  Those young guys don't play against sides like that so that is a good experience for them and I thought at the end of the game they started to adjust better and make better decisions."

Six Australia 'A' players, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Al Campbell, Brett Sheehan, Nic Henderson, David Croft and Lachlan MacKay will all return to Australia tomorrow, while hooker Stephen Moore will travel with the Wallaby Squad to Marseille with Adam Freier still in doubt with a groin injury.

The scorers:

For Australia 'A':
Tries: Croft, Polota-Nau, Ashley-Cooper, Rogers, Roe
Cons: Sheperd 4
Pens: Sheperd 3

French Barbarians:
Tries: August 2
Con: Dubois