We thought we were relaxed for a good month after the opening victory against the All Blacks, a cocktail in hand by the pool while waiting for Italy to build up pressure in anticipation of the quarter-finals. And then woefully, the B team gets confused against Uruguay, and it’s as if all our pre-World Cup certainties had vanished.
We only talk about the Gruyere defense of the Blues and this disorderly attacking game, we rack our brains with a scenario where France could not qualify in the event of a defeat against Italy when that is not no longer arrived for 10 years, we ride the donkey on a rant from Fabien Galthié against the kids from Stade Français in training, we watch with a little jealousy Ireland and South Africa reciting their rugby in the group next door. In short, we let ourselves be caught up in spite of ourselves by a sort of cloud of anxiety which would come to envelop the XV of France.
“This start of the World Cup is very French, both in the way of scaring each other on the pitch and in the way in which we bring up this little music,” laughs Julien Pierre on the other end of the phone. We’re at home, everyone wants to see the French team shine, win in style by scoring a lot of tries, so there’s a bit of excitement on all sides. We expect a lot from this team which has delighted us in recent years, but the competition is so long, we are not going to start worrying now. »
The former international was part of the crazy adventure of the 2011 World Cup, which began under a torrent of criticism and ended just one point away from the coronation against the Blacks on their home soil. Two incomparable eras, of course, two teams with opposing references at the start of their competition, the joyful chaos of the Marc Lièvremont era on one side, the precise arrow of time of Fabien Galthié on the other. But only one rule of the game: “The important thing is to win in the end. The rest is poetry,” summarizes the former second line.
Lost red thread and Darwin’s theory
In the absence of real concern, there is reason to scratch your head a little, all the same. Laurent Labit recognized this on Sunday. “What interests us is the content and on this point, we are frustrated,” conceded the attack coach. We were good in the second half against New Zealand and about 20 minutes against Uruguay. This is too little compared to what we aim for. » Looking more closely and without the eyes of love, we can even add four very uneven preparation matches, including a lot of points conceded, and a defeat in Ireland during the match that everyone expected during the last Tournament.
In the end, this somewhat subterranean impression that the blue clock is no longer as well regulated as between November 2021 and November 2022, this blessed period punctuated by an orgy against New Zealand, a grand slam during the VI Nations and a knockout inflicted on South Africa. The performance against Uruguay, to come back to it, left the staff somewhat groggy. Even with the hairdressers, he certainly did not expect a copy so far removed from the standards of the team built over four years, as if the common thread which linked all these months of work had been lost along the way.
“We said that the French team was hiding its game for this World Cup, but by hiding it, we wonder if they remember where they put it,” scratches former coach Pierre Berbizier with of the AFP. There may be a certain urgency, then, to mark the occasion against Namibia and put everything back on track. This is undoubtedly the reflection which led to reinstalling the entry bosses, even if Fabien Galthié assured this Tuesday noon that it was in no way “a change of course” in reaction to Uruguay.
“There are a lot of debates about the composition, but we make our teams by the week,” he explained, even relying during a flight of which he has the secret on the great theory of evolution to illustrate his point: “Our method is to adapt. To states of form, to situations, to context. Darwin teaches us that it is not the strongest species that survive, but those that adapt. We try to follow his good advice. »
Need for cohesion
No more digression, there is ultimately only a little time left to arrive ready and full of confidence in the quarter-finals, a meeting which constitutes the real crossroads of this competition, facing one of the two best nations in the game. knows the keys to winning final phase matches: conquest, discipline, our defense and then also the attack, with a few launches, a few well-regulated circuits, explains Laurent Labit. Matches against Uruguay or Namibia must serve to find our accuracy, our connection, so that the day we have fewer opportunities, we are able to score. Otherwise we will have to do 100% on all the balls we will have. » Which never happens, obviously.
The big return of the starters on Thursday is part of this objective. And this is not to displease those concerned. Matthieu Jalibert during the pleadings:
What is important for us is to play matches. We have significant weeks of training, we work well, we have enough to get into rhythm, but what is important is to have playing time, to work on our automatisms and cohesion. »
The opener is even more concerned than the others, he who only demonstrated his starting status during the last preparation match against Australia, after the injury to Romain Ntamack. “There is no need to spare, I am happy to be able to play, I need rhythm, to find reference points with the team,” he explains.
France needs to see a demonstration to sleep soundly again. Either way, history shows that a World Cup victory is built around a typical team that breaks away quickly and doesn’t let up until the end, whatever sport we’re talking about. It needs to tighten up at some point to take shape better. We are surely at this moment for the XV of France.