The appointment of Shaun Edwards as defence coach shows France are getting serious again. No country has won more Six Nations titles in the professional era than Les Bleus, tied on seven with England, even though their last success was in 2010.
Since then, they have tended to bumble along in the bottom half of the table, absent away and not too often in at home. Their last victory at Twickenham in the championship was 2005, in Cardiff it was 2010 and they have not won in Dublin in the tournament since 2011.
Bernard Laporte, who as a coach enjoyed success in the Six Nations, tried in his capacity as the president of the French Rugby Federation to secure a non-Frenchman to succeed Jacques Brunel as head coach after the World Cup: he had in mind Joe Schmidt and Warren Gatland, but he needed the approval of clubs for the unprecedented move and failed.
So he turned to Raphaël Ibañez, who as a player at Wasps worked under Edwards, and appointed him manager with Fabien Galthié taking over from Brunel. Although given Galthié was part of the management team in the World Cup he was effectively in place six months earlier than advertised. As the hosts of the 2023 World Cup, Laporte expects France to be contenders, much as they were in 2007 when the country first staged the event and he was in his final year as the national side’s head coach.
They reached the semi-finals at that tournament when they tried to impersonate England and went down to the real thing having lost to Argentina in Paris and defeated New Zealand in Cardiff on the way there. It was classic France, up one week and way down the next, but at least they had a shape to them. They have meandered since then, inconsistency in selection reflected in performances at a time when Wales and Ireland, followed by England, brought in coaches from overseas.
This year’s Six Nations reflected their decline this decade, blowing a 16-point interval lead in Paris before stunning the crowd at Twickenham with their defensive ineptitude having opted not to pick a specialist full-back. They were 26-0 down in Dublin before scoring two late tries and victories over Scotland and Italy took them to fourth, but again a country with one of the highest playing populations in the world game failed to muster a challenge for the title.
France have lacked coherence this decade, moments of brilliance unable to compensate for the lack of an identity. Even with Galthié in harness, if not nominally in charge, the World Cup campaign exposed their nature, 17 points ahead in the first-half against Argentina and Tonga only to be hanging on at the end to win both matches by two. They were 12-0 up against Wales in the quarter-final only to fail to score a point in the second half, not helped by a mindless act of foul play by Sébastien Vahaamahina.
The second row’s elbow on Aaron Wainwright highlighted the self-destructive nature of a side that has long forgotten how to win tournaments: sloppy mistakes let Tonga and Wales back into matches they should have been shut out of and a failure to exert control when it is needed is perhaps a consequence of the way they have messed about at outside-half this decade and regularly been rudderless. In the words of the song, every time they get to the final piece they start disassembling.
They only won one second half in the World Cup, against the United States after a late flurry. The aggregate score in that period against Argentina, Tonga and Wales was 9-42 compared to 56-20 in the first period. It suggests a lack of conditioning, but the problem appears to be as much mental as physical. Edwards will help change that: language should not be an issue because no one will fail to understand the meaning of his icy stare.
France are 10-1 to win the Six Nations, behind the odds-on favourites, England, Ireland and Wales. They start with the beaten World Cup finalists on the first Sunday in February in Paris. They have lost on the opening weekend for the last three years, the last two despite home advantage, and the new regime will not have had an autumn campaign to bed in.
If Galthié masters selection, an area which separates the best coaches from the rest, France will become a force again. Who he goes for at outside-half will offer a guide: Romain Ntamack was the preferred choice in the position during the World Cup, but he was in the midfield on Friday night at Kingsholm when Toulouse, after gifting Gloucester two tries in the opening half in the manner of the national side, dominated in the second half.
The variety of Camille Lopez’s kicking undid Harlequins at Clermont Auvergne the following day while that evening Matthieu Jalibert kicked 20 points for Bordeaux-Begles in their victory over Wasps and tormented them with his running game. He won his solitary cap as a 19-year old at the start of the 2018 Six Nations only for injury to return him to relative obscurity.
France’s last Six Nations title came in the year that Toulouse won the Champions Cup for the fourth time. They have not appeared in a final since or even enjoyed a home quarter-final. As the club rises again, Les Bleus’ souffle is being prepared with a new recipe; England will be the first to find out if it is half-baked.
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