France came through an enormous scare to beat Italy in their Six Nations opener in Rome.
The defending champions were expected to brush serial Wooden Spoon winners Italy aside but were met with determined resistance from the Azzuri.
France got themselves on the scoresheet early on thanks to a Thibault Flament try following an Italian error. Thomas Ramos converted to give France a 0-7 lead. Tommaso Allan booted over a penalty to reduce the arrears before Ramos then inflicted further damage by scoring a try of his own although this time he missed the conversion.
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Allan then added another penalty only for Ethan Dumortier to score his first every try for France. Italy, however, were not done yet and responded with an Ange Cappuozo try and Allan's third penalty to trail but just five points at the break.
Ramos added three points early in the second-half but when Ollivon was sin-binned for bringing down an Italian maul alarm bells rang for the French. They rang even louder minutes later when the Azzuri took the lead for the first time thanks to another Allan penalty. 61 minutes gone and Italy led That was as good as it got though for the Italians as on came Matthieu Jalibert to score the all important match winning try for France and in the process securing a bonus point victory.
France were given an almighty fright but came through unscathed.
In Rome it finished Italy 24-29 France.
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