France have survived an almighty scare to get their Six Nations title defence underway with a narrow 29-24 victory over Italy at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
The visitors went into the contest as huge favourites to win following a perfect 2022 in which they won every single match, including claiming a Six Nations Grand Slam.
However, Italy ran them all the way and led with less than 20 minutes remaining to threaten one of the biggest Six Nations upsets of all time until Matthieu Jailbert's try ultimately spared the defending champions' blushes and earned them a record-extending 14th successive win.
A fearless Italian side still had chances to secure victory at the death, with Tommaso Allan narrowly missing a penalty which would have closed the deficit to just two points and allowed him to go for the victory with one of the two late penalties Italy earned.
Instead, the Azzurri were forced to go to the corner with both of those, and the second ultimately saw them concede a penalty of their own to hand France a nail-biting victory.
Italy were courageous in their play from the outset, but early on that looked to be their downfall as they gifted early tries to Thibaud Flament and Thomas Ramos by making errors when trying to play out from deep inside their own half.
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A debut try for Ethan Dumortier looked to have put France on course for the routine win which many expected, only for Italy's new golden boy Ange Capuozzo to respond in kind with a good finish on the blindside.
Allan's third penalty of the first half sent the hosts into half time with just a five-point deficit and, while Ramos extended that to eight with a kick of his own soon after the restart, Italy refused to go away.
The home side's pressure forced a penalty try to reduce the deficit to one, and with Charles Ollivon sent to the bin for his part in that, Italy then took the lead through another Allan penalty as France's ill-discipline threatened to cost them.
Jailbert's 66th-minute try shortly after coming off the bench nudged France back ahead and ultimately proved to be the winning moment, but Italy's failure to take advantage of their late missed penalties will likely leave them lamenting what might have been.
Nonetheless, it was an eye-catching performance from Kieran Crowley's side and one which will make the rest of the tournament sit up and take notice as they seriously threatened to beat a team ranked second in the world and favourites to win the World Cup later this year.
France, meanwhile, will need to improve their discipline in particular ahead of next week's showdown with the world's top-ranked team Ireland, in what has been touted as an early title decider in Dublin.
Barney Corkhill
