Coach Robbie Deans believes his Australia side’s 30-point victory over France in Brisbane on Saturday night was another significant step forward.
The Australians ran in four-tries-to-one on the way to a 40-10 victory over the understrength tourists – their largest-ever-winning margin against Les Bleus.
"Each week we’ve taken a step and made some progress which is pleasing and the pleasing thing is we haven’t dropped off on some of the things that we’ve added," Deans said.
"The defence was consistently accurate and aggressive and it’s great – we’ve made some deposits and we’ve made some progress.
"We’ll lick our wounds now and gather a group for the Tri Nations and get on with it."
But while clearly pleased with his own team’s performance, the New Zealand-born coach delivered an honest assessment of the visitors.
"I think they’re looking forward to their vacation," Deans said.
He added: "While the French are looking forward to getting home they don’t give it (victory) to you, you’ve got to earn it and it was physical – the casualty ward is evidence of that.
"So I don’t mean that in a derogatory way at all because they played physically but the reality is they’ve had a long year.
"You only had to look at the number of injury stoppages and so forth, and water stoppages, they weren’t enjoying it."
France coach Marc Lievremont conceded the absence of almost 20 front-line players due to their club duties coupled with the length of the domestic season made the tour Down Under an even tougher challenge.
"We might be right at the limit of the system we have in France, especially for our captain (Lionel Nallet) who’s had a 53-week season," a dejected Lievremont said.
Pressed for positives following his side’s second heavy defeat at the hands of the Wallabies in as many weeks, the former French flanker said: "It’s hard to be happy after losing by 30 points but we still have some satisfaction, some individual players had a good game."
He added: "Every time you prepare for an international game you want to believe that everything is possible and you can win but the Australian team today made us face reality."
While the French will now enjoy a four-week hiatus, the Wallabies must turn their attention to the annual Tri Nations series against the Springboks and All Blacks.
"We’ll bring a lot of belief forward but we’re very conscious of the (fact that) the next arena’s going to be very different," Deans said.
"I caught 20-30 minutes of the first Tri Nations fixture (between South Africa and New Zealand on Saturday night) and it will be another level, there’s no doubt about that.
"But these guys are ready for that, they’re excited about what’s ahead of them.
“We’ve built from week to week and that’s what we’ll look to do again."
