Guy Novès cancelled his customary press conference on Wednesday in the buildup to his team’s final match of this Six Nations against England on Saturday. Hitherto the new France coach had performed his media duties with due diligence but Sunday’s defeat by Scotland has already cooled relations.
Cracks in the relationship began to appear after the 19-10 defeat by Wales, the scoreline masking the true extent of the gulf in class. Though that defeat was France’s first of the Six Nations, it had been preceded by two narrow and unconvincing victories at home to Italy and Ireland. The defeat by Scotland shook the nation.
Even Novès’s predecessor, the much-maligned Philippe Saint-André, never lost to the Scots. Only once this century had France previously succumbed, in 2006, when Bernard Laporte was coach. But that was just a blip during a Six Nations campaign when France were crowned champions, as they were in 2002, 2004 and 2007 under Laporte.
How distant those days now seem. France last won the Six Nations in 2010 – this now their longest period without winning at least a share of the title since the early 1950s – but for Laporte this season France have plumbed new depths. “It’s the worst team we’ve had in four years,” he declared at the start of this week.
Laporte has been saying this for weeks but initially his was a lone voice, a sceptic in a country of optimists who believed Novès would swiftly lift France out of the pit of despondency in which they had been dumped by Saint-André. Instead, if anything France have made more unforced errors and looked more disorganised under Novès.
After the Scotland match Novès bemoaned the “youthful mistakes” of his players, an excuse that drew a sharp retort from Midi Olympique. Pointing out that 10 of the starting XV had played in the World Cup, the paper asked why England, also in transition with a new coach and captain, are gunning for a grand slam.
Le Figaro believes the answer is Eddie Jones, an experienced international coach in comparison with Novès, who has only ever coached Toulouse. “Having performed miracles with Japan in the World Cup, he’s immediately put the Sweet Chariot on the right tracks,” stated the paper. There was no secret to what Jones was doing, added Le Figaro; he was simply playing to England’s strengths with a pack of forwards who were “ultra-testosterone, hard and powerful in every impact”.
In selecting his XV to confront England at the Stade de France Novès has stayed loyal to the backline that lost to Scotland but has made two changes in the back row, with Bernard Le Roux and Loann Goujon replacing Yacouba Camara and Wenceslas Lauret.
That means a fifth cap for Jefferson Poirot, the 23-year-old Bordeaux loosehead, whose Nigerian father met his French mother while working in a London hospital. Earlier in the week Laporte said that his only glimmer of hope for Saturday’s match was the fact that “there won’t be any pressure on France because we’re the outsider”. Poirot agrees. “Everybody expects us to lose,” he said. “It’s motivating, exciting. The English are the reference point and the rivalry is always there.”
Poirot has an added incentive to beat England. If he loses, waiting for him on his return to Bordeaux will be the club’s defence coach, Joe Worsley, the former England flanker. “I hope to be able to take the mickey a little when I return,” joked Poirot, although he is in no doubt what could happen if France don’t raise their game. “If we’re sloppy, it won’t be a 10-point difference but a lot more.”
France have struggled in the scrum all tournament, a source of shame for a nation with a reputation for its bullying dominance in the set-piece. In an attempt to match England’s power in this area, Novès has brought in Goujon at No8. “Loann is going to bring a freshness to a position,” explained the French coach. “He’ll beef up our back row in view of the power of the English. If we can match them in this area, we can disrupt this infernal machine.”
It’s a big “if”, given the way France have played in their previous four matches, and the editorial in Friday’s Midi Olympique was tinged with foreboding. Under the heading “The distorting mirror” the paper said the fantasy is that France will beat England combining the panache of their backs with the power of their pack as they often did in the 1980s. “The image of Les Bleus is still linked with attacking rugby, the famous concept of French flair,” the paper said. “It’s a reflection in a distorting mirror of our history, of a rugby culture still solidly rooted in parochialism.”
The cold truth, it further lamented, is that French rugby no longer has flair or force but “illusions, alas, are difficult to dismantle”.
