HAVING survived an early shock when Australia’s Craig Goodwin lashed home a super cross from Matthew Leckie, France piled on the pressure and the goals as they breezed to a 4-1 win in their Tuesday night Group D fixture.

It was good to see South Africa’s Victor Gomez with the whistle but he was to become little more than a traffic controller as Le Bleu mounted countless raids into enemy territory.

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From the outset, it was evident that Kilian Mbappe’s speed would cause problems for the Socceroos, but France might well have gone two down in the 22^nd minute after Mitchell Duke hit a piledriver from distance only to see it veer wide with Hugo Lloris well beaten.

But once the French got their first goal to steady the nerves, it became a procession.

Adrien Rabiot met a through ball from Hernandez and nodded it home to level matters at 1-1

Soon after, a poor back pass was intercepted and Rabiot put it on a plate for Olivier Giroud to score his 50^th goal for France (2-1).

France were showboating and the Oz goalmouth was starting to look as busy as a Sassa queue as shot after shot was lined up.

Giroud, Mbappe – twice – and Dembele all missed sitters and on the cusp of half time, Australia almost provided a second shock as Jackson Irvine’s header hit the post with Lloris stranded.

On the hour mark, a Giroud back heel put Mbappe through but the danger was temporarily averted.

A Dembele cross was headed in off the post by Mbappe (3-1) and when Giroud also used his head to nod home an Mbappe cross for 4-1, the French record books were revised.

In scoring his 51^st goal for his country, Giroud joined Thierry Henry as France’s shared top scorer.

Ironically, the striker was only in the side because of the withdrawal of favoured front man Karim Benzema.

A solid 4-1 win for the reigning champs who might well make a clean sweep of their group games.