Two days have passed and the depression is barely dissipating. We imagined ourselves writing about the fantastic opportunity to reach a World Cup final by kicking the English butts, we find ourselves having to dissect the reasons for a resounding failure. The word is harsh when we talk about a one-point defeat against South Africa, but as former coach Pierre Berbizier reminded us before the match, this French XV was “forced to go to the end, given the means, preparation and quality of this workforce.” “There will be no excuses,” he warned, and therefore not even that of the arbitration.
Architect of the renewal of the Blues since 2019, Fabien Galthié inevitably finds himself on the front line when it comes time to take stock. Because you have to give some back before you can move on. There is always the risk, when a coach is extended before a major competition, of shortening the debates and sweeping dust under the carpet to make people believe that we are starting again on a very nice and clean field.
Under contract until 2028, Galthié will continue its mission but it would be a mistake to plan ahead without taking the trouble to study the causes of this elimination. And to put on the table the file of the means made available. “The work that has been done over these four years is good work. Everything that was put in place was relevant, but we missed a match, the most important one,” summarizes ex-international and current Grenoble manager Aubin Hueber.
A surprising change in strategy
We can first of all question the approach to this quarter-final. Beyond the nervousness displayed, a problem already raised during their entry into contention against New Zealand, the coach was taken on his strong points: anticipation and strategy. “From the outside, we don’t really understand,” observes Hueber. The game of the French team, for four years, has been occupation, dispossession, strong defense, only to then hurt on a few shots with our offensive talent. All this to find yourself in the quarter-final of the World Cup against South Africa to keep the ball and challenge them physically. It’s good, it made for a very good first period, but we weren’t used to doing it in the face of such adversity and we got exhausted. »
This explains the slack from the hour mark and the lack of juice to go for the win in the last minutes. Or we should have anticipated and perhaps removed the injured Julien Marchand from the group to replace him with a player tailor-made for this tactical option, randomly Paul Willemse. In the end, this impression that there was so much talk about the power of the Boks before the match that the Blues wanted to prove that they were largely at their level from this point of view. “We wanted to take them at their game, but they are used to it, they know how to manage,” adds Hueber.
“They were better than us, they had everything planned”
The South Africans presented themselves with a carefully developed battle plan. First with the simple intention of pounding the Bielle-Biarrey side with high balloons, a flaw identified in the blue armor. The young winger is not comfortable in these sequences, so Fickou and Woki found themselves coming to help, but are not used to being in this area. The fallout disorder causes the first two attempts. “You quickly feel that this is where they want to take you. Fabien could have decided to bring Macalou into the wing very quickly,” points out the Grenoble manager.
Galthié could also have favored the Villière option at kick-off, a better defender than his partner. Especially since he was “prepared” for this “optimization of the high-footed game”, as he assured after the match. But the Toulon winger was put in the cellar after Uruguay and never revived. Here again a damaging and quite inexplicable lack of anticipation when we knew for three weeks and Ireland’s victory against the Boks that they would be facing each other in the quarters. “We worked hard all week on the maul, the advantage line, their set pieces. In the end, they just won the aerial match and that was crucial,” defense coach Shawn Edwards admitted Tuesday in his weekly column for the Daily Mail.
Further into the match, the surprise 5-3 bench of the Boks did its work, with the entry of the hinge that we imagined to be holder Pollard-De Klerk from the 45th to gradually reverse the balance of power and that from the Ox Nche pillar barely later to accentuate the domination in the melee. All this to say that the French staff, which we have so often praised for the meticulousness of their preparation work, this time lost the battle of the famous finishers. “We have to be clear, on the tactical approach they were better than us,” insists Hueber. They had everything planned. » A stone in the garden of Galthié.
A lifestyle that weighs on the budget
And what next? The coach benefited from unprecedented and exceptional conditions to offer France its first world title. The former president of the FFR Bernard Laporte spared no expense, with a staff of around thirty people composed entirely of big names, plethora of gatherings outside Marcoussis and the signing of an agreement with the National League so that the clubs participate in the war effort (42 players summoned each time). All this for an annual cost oscillating between 15 and 19 million euros, revealed the treasurer of the Fédé Alexandre Martinez to Olympic Midday last year.
A lifestyle, on paper, impossible to maintain in view of the federal accounts. At the dawn of this World Cup, the new president Florian Grill announced that when he took charge he had found “a very serious budget deficit problem”, with an operating loss approaching 20 million euros, on a total budget of 130 million. But reading it Tuesday morning in The Team, this is not a reason to give up. The idea is to “find additional resources” rather than make “severe cuts” to the allocated resources, to continue to “invest in this team” so that it generates even more money for the FFR.
This question is central, because it determines the ability of the French XV to remain at the top of the world hierarchy. We box in the category we deserve. Fabien Galthié should therefore be able to continue targeting the heavyweights, with some changes already announced in the management: Patrick Arlettaz (attack), Laurent Sempéré (touch) and Nicolas Jeanjean (physical preparation) will arrive to replace Laurent Labit, Karim Ghezal and Thibault Giroud.
Clubs also always sharing?
We will also have to see the position of the clubs, sometimes forced to put aside their sporting ambitions for the good of the national team. Even if here again, the agreement between the Federation and the League runs until 2027 and is not intended to be adjusted, according to LNR boss René Bouscatel. “The bridges between the FFR, the League, the clubs and the coaches of the French youth teams have enabled this progression of French rugby. We absolutely must keep them going,” argues Aubin Hueber, who supervised the U18s, the U19s then the U20s between 2015 and 2021. Even if as a club manager, he would understand that certain presidents “demand accountability”.
Beyond these considerations, the difficulty for Fabien Galthié will be to find how to breathe new life into his famous “methodology”, which was entirely focused on this World Cup at home. “We cannot start again on the same basis, with the same motivation. If I were him, I would leave because I wouldn’t feel capable of building something completely different with a collective that wouldn’t move too much,” he says in The Parisian Pierre Villepreux, coach from 1997 to 1999 with Jean-Claude Skrela.
A bit radical, but we get the idea. In any case, Fabien Galthié bears an enormous responsibility. At the end of his contract, in 2028, that will make him a little over eight years at the head of the Blues, with colossal resources and ultra-talented generations (if we add that of the U20 crowned world champions in July). It will have to show up in the trophy cabinet at some point.