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French fly half Frederic Michalak continued his impressive run at the 2015 Rugby World Cup as he helped France register their third successive win at this year's tournament, beating Canada 41-18 at Milton Keynes in their Pool D match.
Michalak's recall to the side by French coach Philippe Saint-Andre was not the most welcomed decision by French fans with some of them even dubbing it 'crazy'.
But Michalak has let the performances do the talking as he put in yet another man-of-the-match performance against Canada. In the process, he also became the highest points scorer in world cup history for France, crossing Thierry Lacroix's tally of 124 points.
Canada, for their part, contributed to the contest with their gung ho approach ultimately making for an entertaining match.
It wasn't just Michalak's kicking on display here, it was his passing too. With the boot he contributed 14 points to the total, however he was instrumental in each of the other plays as well.
For the first try, he held off three tackles before offloading the ball to Wesley Fofana for the touchdown.
Fofana was presented with another opportunity to score when Michalak produced a beautiful chip over the defence off his foot, but the French centre was unable to gather the ball cleanly.
It looked like it was going to be a straightforward bonus point victory, but Canada mounted a charge despite losing their captain to injury.
DTH van der Merwe, Nathan Hirayama and Matt Evans have sparkled at this tournament and put on a show for the watching public. They did it once again as from 17-0 down, Canada reduced the deficit to 5 points, with two tries in the space of four minutes from van der Merwe and Aaron Carpenter.
Canada stayed on the offensive, but the downside was that they kept getting caught out by France on the break. France scored more tries through Remy Grosso and Pascal Pepe to make it five tries for the match and earn the bonus point.
Saint-Andre said after the match, "The first half was great, we kept the ball and was clever in our game plan. Then after 30 minutes, we lost our intensity and lost two contests in the air allowing the Canadians to take advantage.”
Les Bleus next play Ireland on October 11 in the pivotal clash of Pool D as that match will decide who finishes top and who finishes second. The runner-up will likely face champions New Zealand in the quarterfinals.
