Worryingly sensible sounds are starting to emerge from French rugby. They are in the vanguard of the campaign to extend qualification by residency; they are closing loopholes for the poaching by their clubs of overseas players; and, most astonishingly of all, a workable accord has been established between the union and those clubs, the upshot of which is meaningful time for Guy Novès with his players. All they need to do now is to start winning some meaningful matches.
There is ample scope for it all to go wrong again before it has gone right. Bernard Laporte was voted in as the president of the FFR barely a month ago. He has never been afraid of stirring things up. Already he has muttered darkly about revisiting the terms of an accord he did not sign up to. And he has never seen eye to eye with Novès, who may not feel he has Laporte’s full support.
What Novès has had, though – and this is of immediate relevance to England, who play France in the Six Nations at Twickenham on Saturday – is a full two weeks with his squad, a luxury not extended to his much-maligned predecessor, Philippe Saint-André. Nor indeed himself in his first Six Nations campaign last year, which never really got going, despite the boon of a pair of wins at the start.
They finished it, as France have every edition of the championship since 2011, in the bottom half of the table, this time fifth, a pitiful return for a nation of their resources.
“I can’t tell you why we haven’t been winning since 2011,” concedes Novès, “but there are other nations who haven’t been winning either. In France we are thinking a lot about player development. Rugby in France is not a priority in general education, as it is in other nations. We have to make players play as young as possible. France may be rich in resources, but the other side of the coin is that this attracts a lot of foreign players, which also has a big impact on the development of younger players.”
Nevertheless, he has found room for some promising youngsters in the 32-man squad he now gets to control for eight consecutive weeks across the Championship – as opposed to those odd weeks the clubs have been obliged to surrender their players for in the past. More importantly, there were distinct signs in the second half of Novès’s first year in charge of an upturn in form.
Their drawn series in Argentina last summer, with a squad shorn of a host of players on, you guessed it, club duty, featured a 27-0 win against the full-strength Pumas in the second Test, more than South Africa managed and a greater margin even than the All Blacks in last year’s Rugby Championship. The promise developed further in the autumn, when a romp against Samoa was followed by narrow defeats against Australia and New Zealand.
“We’ve been making progress,” says Guilhem Guirado, France’s admirable captain. “We got closer to Australia and New Zealand, two of the top three teams in the world. Now we want to continue making progress – but to win as well.”
That second little detail is usually the last to fall into place, being the hardest to pull off, but before anyone dismisses France’s chances of managing it on Saturday against the third of the top three teams in the world we should dwell on those two autumn Tests. They really should have beaten Australia and, but for a length-of-the-field interception try by Beauden Barrett just as France looked likely to score themselves, they might well have beaten New Zealand.
Certainly, their scrum will defer to no one, but they played some magnificent rugby with ball in hand against the All Blacks, albeit for the return of just one try in a 24-19 defeat. That said, they have been hit horribly by the loss of Wesley Fofana for the whole championship, and the usual caveats apply over goal-kicking and the uncertainty surrounding their best fly-half.
Camille Lopez looks as if he will be entrusted with the No10 shirt for now. On form, he is the man, but if he failed to rise to the occasion it would not be for the first time. He is one of France’s goal-kicking options, but none is first-choice kicker for his club.
So you would be mad to back them, mad to dismiss them. Same as usual. Novès has had a year now, though, and a peace, however precarious, seems to have descended between club and country.
The signs in the second half of that year are that France might be beginning to rediscover themselves. If so, the wins will surely follow.
