France v Australia: Giroud heads up 9/1 treble

• Giroud has scored in 3 of last 4 French starts

• France look way too good for Aussies

• Atkinson offers fouls value

I've long felt Olivier Giroud has been an under-appreciated striker and Tuesday night's World Cup game looks a good chance for him to shine once more.

An injury to Karim Benzema has disrupted France's plans for this game but it has opened up the opportunity for Giroud to start in a central role in the attack.

He's rarely let his country down, playing a key role in their run to the Euro 2016 final and starting six of their seven games at the last World Cup which, of course, they won.

His goalscoring tally is now at 49 for Les Bleus from 114 games. It might not be spectacular but it's very solid at international level.

Importantly, the 36-year-old's form is strong.

He's scored nine goals in 19 appearances for AC Milan this season, this after helping them win Serie A last term.

At international level, Giroud has started four games since last summer's European Championships and scored in three of them.

Here he faces one of the tournament weakest sides.

Putting aside Asia's initial group stage which saw the Socceroos up against some of the continent's footballing minnows, Australia were only able to win five of 12 qualifiers and conceded more goals than any of their fellow finalists from that region.

They particularly struggled outside of Australia, only beating UAE (in a play-off) on neutral soil and Vietnam. Oman and China both held them to draws.

Their defence has also been hit by injury issues with Stoke's Harry Souttar, a regular in the early stages of qualifying, having played little since a knee ligament injury. Kye Rowles has also struggled for game-time of late, yet both are under consideration to face one of the best attacks in world football.

Despite having suffered injury problems themselves - as well as Benzema, they've also lost Paul Pogba, N'golo Kante and Presnel Kimpembe - France have great strength in depth and they should prove way too good.

Backing a goal in each half looks a good way to increase our Bet Builder odds, while to complete it I'm going to throw in a bit of a wild card which is Nathaniel Atkinson to commit 2+ fouls.

Admittedly, the right-back doesn't have a great track record for landing this bet for his club, Hearts, but my theory is he won't have many harder games than this.

He looks set to go up against either Kylian Mbappe or Ousmane Dembele down his flank and both men love to run at defenders - Mbappe is in the top 10 in Ligue 1 for dribbles per game, while Demeble is in the top 20 in La Liga.

Atkinson does like a tackle - when Hearts were on the back foot at Celtic earlier this season he managed seven - and given the opponent(s) involved, misjudging one or two doesn't seem that unlikely.

11/4 just strikes me as a big price for this to land and it looks worth taking a risk on.

Put the three bets together and you get a price of just under 9/1 - something perhaps worth placing your free Tuesday £2 bet on.

World Cup Tuesday Cheat Sheet: All the best bets in one place!