From our special correspondent in Marseille,
Rugby is still a funny sport. Every four years, he sets out to bring the whole world together, trumpets that it is never enough and that we must open the door even wider, while taking great care to leave one foot behind. To be even more surprised, afterward, that the small nations get steamrolled and take an impossible beating when they cross paths with the giants of the game. This happens at every World Cup, this year again with this poor Romanian team, crushed 82-8 by Ireland during the first weekend before regaining 76 points in their teeth by South Africa the following week.
Note that as painful as they are, these spankings do not even enter the top 10 all time of the competition. The All Backs scored 145 points in Japan in 1995, 108 in Portugal in 2007 and 101 in Italy in 1999; Australia is not bad either with a bloody 142-0 inflicted on Namibia in 2003; England have also crossed the 100 mark twice, against Tonga (1999) and Uruguay (2003). And France in all this? This is the question we asked ourselves before seeing our premium XV frolicking against Namibia, the unofficial whipping boy of the rugby nobility, this Thursday in Marseille. And this is where it gets interesting. Because it appears that a major nation is still resisting temptation.
“We are Latins”
To be completely honest, we find in the archives an anomaly, an 87-10 passed to Namibia (yes, her again) in 2007. We will put it down to anger. The week before, the Blues had lost the opening match at the Stade de France against Argentina. “That day, we wanted to put things back in order,” remembers Yannick Jauzion, who was there. It was a match to catch up, get together and have fun. » But otherwise, the French prefers to stay around the 50 point mark, sufficient to show that he is the boss without unnecessarily displaying his superiority.
Then you will ask yourself “but why?” “. Why do the Blacks, the Boks, the Irish or the English take tempers regularly and we don’t? Some will call it weakness, we prefer to talk about good manners. In reality ? Neither. “We’re Latins, we don’t have the discipline to push to the end,” says Julien Pierre, the former second row with 27 caps. If in our head we imagine that the opponent is less strong, we relax. We are like that. » It is said with the detachment of someone who is not surprised to see the Blues win lousy against Uruguay after having beaten the Blacks the previous week without anyone being able to speak of an achievement.
In connection with the adversary (what?)
Ok, we have a first idea. Julien Pierre elaborates: “We are not capable of practicing this very methodical, calculated, precise game, as the Irish can do for example. On the other hand, we are capable of scoring tries like against the Blacks [lors du 40-25 en 2021] starting with a hand throw from our in-goal. Ireland cannot do that. » We would therefore be dealing with a history of culture rooted in our subconscious, which wants us, Latins, to adapt to the level of the adversary. Strong against the strong, mediocre against the weak. There are counterexamples, of course, but the theory holds up. “Culturally, we have more difficulty assuming our status. Faced with weaker teams, we are often less effective,” says former captain Thierry Dusautoir.
Faced with this almost philosophical subject, we said to ourselves that the best solution would ultimately be to let a professional do it. Thierry Ménissier is a philosopher and, fortunately, a true rugby enthusiast, which he played for 15 years. It is even this sport, through the complexity of its rules and the human relationships which make it its essence, which led him to reflect on the things of life. This question of the difference in approach to the game “questions the deep ethnicity of nations”, he believes:
The Anglo-Saxons apply procedures. I work a lot with companies. In those of Anglo-Saxon culture, these “processes” are carried out to the letter, sometimes to the point of absurdity. The French are perhaps too down to earth, too empathetic, too attentive. »
Transposed to the field, this would translate among French players into a sort of connection with the opponent, an exaltation of the “we” essential for playing a good rugby match, rather than the “I” reciting rugby alone in his corner. “There is a dialogue, an empathy, which means that the relationship with the other team will be symmetrical in both excellence and mediocrity,” continues our philosopher, author of Rugby union, between philosophy and mythology. That’s typically Latin. »
These considerations may seem a bit pompous, but this is what we can detect in Charles Ollivon’s speech when he was questioned on Wednesday about the need for the Blues to take a pill for Namibia. “A victory, yes. A card… We will first focus on winning the match, building our victory. » The third row attaches more importance to “coming out of the match with a banana”, to “enjoying a nice evening”. “We want to enjoy ourselves,” he finally said. Pleasure before humiliation, we know how to have a sense of priorities.
“This little French defect paradoxically pays tribute to weak nations. And besides, it’s not one for me, in a way we magnify the glorious uncertainty of sport”, observes Thierry Ménissier, really not a fan of these big scores “which hurt rugby, Ultimately “. “We can’t be happy about that. In no other sport aiming to have a global vocation do we find a situation that is structurally so unequal, even unjust. » We say thank you to France, then, for not adding too much. That is, until she broke her points record on Thursday night, at least.