France flew a squad to the far side of the earth, sweated through a humid Tokyo evening, and still put 42-15 on Japan like a chore they wanted finished before the flight home. Six tries, Maxime Lucu quietly filing 15 points, and the Bleus closing the southern tour 2-1 with the smug air of a nation that treats a 22-hour round trip as light cardio. Galthié's travelling circus packs up and goes home, encore delivered, nobody asked, everybody feared.
Lucu, cool as the wine list
Fifteen points from the 9 is the sort of tidy, unglamorous shift that wins tours and loses headlines. Lucu kept the tempo honest and the scoreboard fat while the back three ran in the flashy stuff. There is something deeply French about the scrum-half being the one to calmly balance the books while everyone else takes the applause.
Two from three, and no shame in the one
The final ledger reads wins over Australia (42-26) and Japan, and a single defeat to New Zealand — which, given they flew reserves round the planet and still detonated on two of three, is a flex dressed as a fixture list. Japan, to their credit, gave it the full hundred-miles-an-hour treatment in front of their own crowd, banked a win over Italy earlier in the swing, and simply ran into a bigger, meaner machine on the night.
So France go home jet-lagged, lightly dented, and quietly dangerous, with the depth of a nation that can win 42-15 on the road with the understudies. The southern tour is done, the band has played its last number, and the rest of the world got another reminder that the French production line never stops. Bon vol, les Bleus. Rest the adductors. You'll need them.