Julien Lyneel was one of the French players who took advantage of extra court time
Sydney, Australia, June 18, 2016 - French coach Laurent Tillie was impressed with the depth of his squad, while Australian coach Roberto Santilli said his team struggled with the aggressive French defence.
French captain Benjamin Toniutti – “A lot of players who didn’t play yesterday played today.”
“We have some bad memories of here, two years ago we lost to Australia and today we wanted to show we had progressed since then, and we are better than Australia at this moment.”
“We have a lot of options, it is good for the team because the summer is long and we have to take some rest some times.
Australian captain Greg Sukochev – “There was good fight in the last set from guys who haven’t had a lot of experience on the world stage.”
“We have to keep fighting, we can’t drop our heads. Yes the competition is tough, but we have to take it up to them.”
French coach Laurent Tillie – “It is difficult to play two matches like this plus all the matches last week, so we decided to start like this and see what happened.”
“In fact my team played very well, good passing, good serve and very aggressive in defence. I think we were more aggressive in this match.”
Australian coach Roberto Santilli – “France today played very well on defence, and we struggled to score points in attack. They were playing a different level of defence.
“I gave some time to our younger players and they did well. We have some players who were a bit flat after Japan and not in the best condition.”