Three weeks into the 2015 World Cup and little attention has been paid to the three time finalists, who remain unbeaten yet have slipped relatively unnoticed towards Sunday’s Pool D decider with Ireland.
Having taken over from a controversial head coach in Marc Lievremont, whose reign nonetheless summed up French rugby as his side ended his turbulent time in charge by reaching the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand and losing by just a single point to the hosts, Philippe Saint Andre has fared even worse in Six Nations terms, his side suffering the unheard of fate for France in modern times of coming bottom of the table in 2013 and never having finished in its top half.
Considered a safe pair of hands when he took over his experience and that of France as a whole, betrays the folly of a club-dominated culture since the repeated Six Nations Championship under-performance of the national side which draws upon players from Europe’s strongest league is almost entirely down to the intransigence of its clubs when it comes to releasing players for international duty.
As we have seen elsewhere in Europe, not least in Scotland, there is a tendency among those most heavily involved in the club game to fail to see the bigger picture and to understand that in rugby in particular it is the international game that provides players with the profile that in turn improves their marketability.
Saint Andre has battled with that, but it was telling last weekend, as soon as Joe Schmidt knew his team had won their key preliminary battle against Italy and so ensured that it would be a pool decider with France, was warning that this would be a very different from Ireland’s annual battles with a team they have beaten both times under his leadership and have not lost to since before the last World Cup.
Schmidt is as shrewd as they come, has won a major trophy in every season he has been a head coach - the Heineken Cup in 2011 and 2012, the European Challenge Cup in 2013 and the Six Nations in both 2014 and 2015 – and knows the French set-up intimately having worked under Scotland coach Vern Cotter’s assistant before Leinster made their interesting move to recruit the assistant rather than the head man from Clermont Auvergne.
Schmidt warned that this pool decider would be a very different proposition from Six Nations meetings with the French because they have had proper time to prepare, which is why they regularly seem to defy previous form at World Cups.
He also noted that in spite of enjoying their best run against the French in more than 60 years, Ireland have drawn two of those four matches (before he took over) and his side’s two wins have been by single score margins.
Perhaps more telling still was the observation of Scott Spedding, the not terribly French-sounding French full-back – he is South African and qualifies on residency – that they have yet to produce their best at this tournament and that is almost certainly so.
It feels as if they have eased their way through the pool stages without doing anything special, yet no-one can be in any doubt that, especially at World Cups, they are always capable of it.
It was France who, at the inaugural tournament prevented the two host nations in the final when Serge Blanco completed a ridiculously brilliant move to beat Australia in the semi-final; France who would have denied South Africa its great moment in 1995 had the referee not found a way of denying Abdel Benazzi the semi-final match-winning try he looked clearly to have scored; France who, with Christophe Dominici, leading Jonah Lomu a merry dance, shocked the All Blacks in the second half of the 1999 semi-final; France who sent New Zealand into despair once more in 2007; and France who came so close to denying the All Blacks once more last time around.
At least one big performance is lurking, then and on that evidence, the All Blacks, who have never been beaten by Ireland, must be hoping that France produce one on Sunday. If not, guess who their next match will be against…
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