The French team played single tests against Papua New Guinea, Australia and Fiji, losing all three games.
For the Australians, Brett Mullins, David Fairleigh, Tim Brasher, Paul McGregor and Mark Hohn all made their test debut, though Brasher had been Australia's fullback in the 1992 World Cup final at Wembley Stadium (at the time, tests and World Cup games were counted separately in a players records).
Following the disaster of France's 1981 Australasian tour where the standard of the French teams play had dropped alarmingly resulting in poor attendances for the tests at Lang Park in Brisbane and the Sydney Cricket Ground, the Australian Rugby League had ruled that until they improved their game, the Australian team would no longer play tests against the French in the two capital cities.
The 1990 test, France's first in Australia since 1981 (following the cancelled 1987 tour) had been played on a freezing night in the New South Wales country town of Parkes in front of a capacity crowd of 12,384 fans at the Pioneer Oval.
Despite the French team not being regarded as a top line international team any more (this was France's 11th loss in a row in all tests since 1992 and their 10th loss in a row to Australia since 1981), the game was played in front of a ground record attendance of 27,318 which as would remain the record attendance for the venue until it was demolished in 2017.