Patience will be the Wallabies' buzzword this week, aware they can't afford to fluff attacking chances as they did against Italy when they take on France.

Australia scored two tries in a 32-14 win over the Azzurri in Florence - one a late, soft effort from a scrum gone wrong - but it might have been half a dozen as Quade Cooper and Kurtley Beale weaved their magic.

Time and again the opportunities went begging on Saturday night and, with them, the chance to put the nails in Italy's coffin.

Coach Robbie Deans said recently he and his staff needed to strap themselves in for the ride when the young, attack-minded Wallabies took to the field.

The ride could be getting nauseous.

"Italy stayed in the game off the back of our impatience," Deans admitted.

Centre Berrick Barnes said the talk on the field was about calming things down, but the opportunities on offer proved too difficult to resist.

"It's hard playing Italy because there's a few holes there and you play the likes of the All Blacks and you don't get a lot of them," he said.

"You're trying to (talk about patience) but then your whole mechanism's saying, 'There's a hole and I've got to go and do it'.

"You jump at every chance you get and we probably did that too often."

The Wallabies can ill-afford to squander their chances against Six Nations champions France in Paris this Saturday.

A successful spring tour will depend on a good performance at the Stade de France in what will be Australia's final hitout against a northern hemisphere side before next year's World Cup.

Deans said he was hopeful the side could find a happy balance between flamboyance and percentages.

"But it's part of us," he said. "To be honest it's the reason we've gone up against some pretty good opponents this year.

"They adapted in the end (on Saturday).

"They recognised that really Italy was only profiting off being at our end of the field so they adjusted and we were better for it."

Brighter than expected conditions allowed the Wallabies to shift the ball from outset on the narrow Stadio Artemio Franchi and it augured well when Drew Mitchell barged over in just the eighth minute.

The tenacious Italians restricted Australia to a 13-9 halftime lead before Barnes, who appears to have solved the Wallabies' goalkicking problem, inched the visitors ahead with four second half penalty goals.

A 72nd minute try gave the Azzurri some remote hope before captain Rocky Elsom strolled over late from an Italian scrummaging mistake.

That was ironic because the Australian scrum was in trouble for most of the match and was penalised six times.

Gaining an edge over Italy, who are in Australia's pool at the World Cup was important, Barnes said, but the battle with France will be even more crucial in the build-up to 2011.

"It is important for us going into our World Cup in the sense that we're facing a lot of northern hemisphere sides in our pool," he said.

"So it's a good gauge for us."

The Wallabies trimmed their squad from 32 to 30 players, with rookie halfback Nick Phipps and prop Salesi Ma'afu returning home.

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