Australia clash with France in the Nations Championship in Brisbane on Saturday and after narrow defeats in the opening round both sides are chasing their first victory of the tournament.
Australia vs France, Saturday 11th July, Brisbane, KO 09:40 (South African time)
Referee: Karl Dickson (RFU)
Assistant Referees: Christophe Ridley (RFU), Katsuki Furuse (JRFU)
TMO: Andrew Jackson (RFU)
Weather Forecast - Brisbane
Australia:
Australia were marginal underdogs for their opening match against Ireland in Sydney and the market proved accurate as Ireland edged a thriller 33-31. The teams shared 10 tries and Ireland’s last score came at the death and won the game after the Wallabies had been 12 points in front at one stage. Pietsch, Campbell, Canham, Lonergan and McDermott were the Wallaby try scorers and Gordon landed with 3 conversions and they earned themselves 2 log points.
Australia’s 2025 end of year tour results started with a narrow win in Japan before taking a dive as they lost to England (25-7), Italy (26-19), Ireland (46-19) and finally France (48-33).
In the Nations Championship outright betting markets Australia can be backed at 33/1 to win the title with Hollywoodbets
Nations Championship Results and Fixtures: R1 Ireland (h) lost 33-31, R2 France (h), R3 Italy (h), R4 England (a), R5 Scotland (a), R6 Wales (a)
France:
Without players from Toulouse and Montpellier France were far from full strength for their opening game against New Zealand in Christchurch. They started as 12.5 point underdogs on the bookmakers main handicap line and they eventually went down 34-32. Damian Penaud scored the first try in only the second minute although the All Blacks came back to lead 19-12 by half time. Further French tries came from Hastoy, Attissogbe and Jalibert, they had the All Blacks hanging on at the death but had to be content with 2 log points.
France were already without Antoine Dupont and Louis Bielle-Biarrey for these first three matches on the tournament and last week Damian Penaud also picked up an injury and will play no part over the next two weeks.
France came into the Nations Series on the back of landing the Six Nations title earlier this year. They won their first 3 matches of that tournament at home to Ireland (36-14) and Italy (33-8) either side of a thrashing of Wales (54-12) in Cardiff. They then suffered a defeat in an amazing clash Scotland (50-40) at Murrayfield in the penultimate round. The final round saw them take on England in Paris and it was another thriller with France getting up at the death to win 48-46 to clinch the title.
In the North vs South November internationals in 2025 France lost at home to South Africa (32-17) before back to back wins when hosting Fiji (34-21) and Australia (48-33)
In the Nations Championship outright betting markets France can be backed at 4/1 to win the title with Hollywoodbets
Nations Championship Results and Fixtures: R1 New Zealand (a) lost 34-32, R2 Australia (a), R3 Japan (a), R4 Fiji (h), R5 South Africa (h), R6 Argentina (h)
Recent Head to Head
Nov 2025 INT Paris France 48–33 Australia
Aug 2023 INT Paris France 41-17 Australia
Nov 2023 INT Paris France 30-29 Australia
Jul 2021 INT Brisbane Australia 33-30 France
Jul 2021 INT Melbourne Australia 26-28 France
Jul 2021 INT Brisbane Australia 23-21 France
Team News
Australia: 15 Tom Wright, 14 Max Jorgensen, 13 Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, 12 Len Ikitau, 11 Dylan Pietsch, 10 Declan Meredith, 9 Ryan Lonergan, 8 Harry Wilson (captain), 7 Fraser McReight, 6 Rob Valetini, 5 Jeremy Williams, 4 Josh Canham, 3 Allan Alaalatoa, 2 Josh Nasser, 1 Angus Bell.
Replacements: 16 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 17 James Slipper, 18 Taniela Tupou, 19 Lachlan Shaw, 20 Nick Champion de Crespigny, 21 Tate McDermott, 22 Jock Campbell, 23 Filipo Daugunu.
France: 15 Matthieu Jalibert, 14 Théo Attissogbe, 13 Fabien Brau-Boirie, 12 Yoram Moefana, 11 Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, 10 Romain Ntamack, 9 Maxime Lucu (c), 8 Marko Gazzotti, 7 Oscar Jégou, 6 Lenni Nouchi, 5 Emmanuel Meafou, 4 Florian Verhaeghe, 3 Demba Bamba, 2 Peato Mauvaka, 1 Moses Alo-Emile.
Replacements: 16 Maxime Lamothe, 17 Jefferson Poirot, 18 Tevita Tatafu, 19 Hugo Auradou, 20 Tom Staniforth, 21 Killian Tixeront, 22 Nolann Le Garrec, 23 Kalvin Gourgues
The Betting
Updated 10 July 12h24
Australia +7.5 points at 9/10
France -7.5 points at 9/10
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change.
Betting Angle
Bet: Australia v France (posted 10 July 12h25)
2 units (1–5): Australia over 3.5 tries at 1.84 with PokerBet.
Australia are 7.5-point underdogs at home to France and have plenty of work to do if they are to avoid a second successive defeat in the Nations Championship.
The trend in this competition has been towards high-scoring matches and, in my view, one of the reasons is that the cross-hemisphere format provides little incentive for teams to deny their opponents a four-try bonus point. With ideal conditions forecast for rugby, I'm backing the Wallabies to cross for four or more tries.
More Rugby Bets
This week we have previews and Brent Graham’s bets for New Zealand vs Italy, Australia vs France and South Africa vs Scotland. More Nations Series and World U20 Championship bets from Brent and other members of our community will be posted weekly rugby thread on our brand new discussion forum. If you haven't done so already, register a forum account here.
Note, odds quoted are available at the time of writing but are subject to change.