To the English way of thinking, the greatest day in the history of French rugby, the very pinnacle of it all, was Saturday 2 April, 1927, when they finally beat England for the first time. “The highest ambitions of France as a rugby nation were consummated at the Stade de Colombes today‚” reported the Guardian afterwards, “when the 17th match between that country and England resulted in a win for France by a try to nothing.” It had taken them 21 years, “so France celebrated her coming of age most auspiciously”. For the English, Paris in the springtime would never seem quite so charming again.
England have played there another 43 times since, and won 15 of them. Of all the Six Nations cities, their record is worse there than anywhere else. But back in 1927, the result was so shocking that the papers were asking all week long what went wrong – over-confidence maybe, exhaustion perhaps, and last of all, the indigestible truth: “France deserved their success, they were the better team at every point.” Their forwards dominated the scrum and sent England’s flanker Jerry Hanley off the pitch to get an injury stitched. Their backs played with a “dash and enthusiasm” that made England look “mechanical” in comparison.
The best part of a century later, you can see the traces of some familiar tropes in all that, the idea that the French play a game of rare ferocity and uncommon flair. A lot has changed since, but plenty has stayed the same and , again, England will expect to face similar challenges from a young French team.
“It’s interesting,” Eddie Jones said about their line-up, “but very traditional in a lot of ways. It’s a big heavy tight five, an athletic back row, nine and 10 as distributors, and running outside backs. While they might not have many caps to their name, it’s a very traditional French team.”
Just like the lot that travelled over in 1927, this England will be bullishly confident that they are well equipped to deal with them. Jones has promised the French “absolute brutality”, warning them “we are going to go out there to make sure they understand what Test rugby is. It is about being brutal, it is about being physical, and it is about dominating the set piece.”
Jones’s opposite number, Fabien Galthié, wouldn’t expect anything less. “England have always been a great team,” Galthié said at the Six Nations launch. “I’ve experienced it as a player and as a captain. It’s always been very tough to beat them, they force us to raise our standards.”
He played England 10 times in his long career as a scrum-half and lost seven of them. The worst was the 24-7 defeat in the World Cup semi-final in 2003, his last competitive game. Galthié made a point of mentioning how well England play in the rain. He might have been thinking about that game, when it lashed down in Sydney.
Jones has been gleefully pointing out the forecast for Sunday’s match is lousy. “A damp, wet, cold Stade de France, 3pm on Sunday afternoon, we can’t wait to get there.”
“We also have a plan,” Galthié said on Friday. “Expect a ferocious pack. Expect a ferocious battle to win the ball. Expect my players to stand their ground with ferocious tackles and collisions.”
The headline in Le Figaro called it “a declaration of war”. Galthié has been talking about his forwards ever since he took over as head coach. His first priority, he said, is to build a scary pack. France have a way to go before they earn that reputation. Like Jones said, they may be big and heavy but have 85 caps between them. Only one other coach have gone into a Six Nations fixture with such an inexperienced bunch up front, Galthié’s predecessor, Marc Lièvremont, when France played Scotland in 2008.
So Galthié has been drilling them, had his new coaches, Shaun Edwards and William Servat, working away in training. “We’ve been focusing on that,” Galthié said. “South Africa were world champions first because it certainly had the best pack in the world; second, because it had the best defence.”
In the back of his mind, and everyone else’s, is the way the Springboks worked over the English scrum in the World Cup final. If France’s young forwards can hold their own against England, they have a formidable array of backs behind them, led by Gaël Fickou at inside-centre, a player Edwards has singled out as the man he is going to build his defence around. Outside him, the brilliant Virimi Vakatawa and two lethal wings in Teddy Thomas and Damian Penaud.
For all Jones’s talk, this England team is not as imposing as the one that lost in the final, since they are missing the Vunipola brothers, Billy and Mako, as well as Anthony Watson. The reshuffle has Tom Curry starting out of position at No 8, Courtney Lawes is on the blindside flank, Charlie Ewels in at lock, and the debutant George Furbank starting at full-back.
There are more raw Test players on the bench, Will Stuart, Ollie Devoto and Lewis Ludlam. Altogether England are just a touch more vulnerable than you would think from listening to Jones’s bluster. Still, they should have enough about them to beat such a callow French team.
Whether you would say the same again in four years’ time is a very different question. By then, France may have grown into a formidable side. But one of the curious aspects about this is that Jones does not have to worry about that, because his contract is up two years from now. And despite his talk about how he wants England to become the greatest team to play the game, that uncertainty about who will be coaching them in 2023 means it is not wholly clear where England are heading.
All that can wait, though. For a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon, he and his players will have plenty else to think about.
