Peter Bills: French need more brains, less brawn
No one does a crisis quite like the French. Whether it's students tearing up paving stones in the street to hurl at police, workers setting cars alight or politicians spouting verbal abuse at critics, the French are in a class of their own.
Last week, President Nicolas Sarkozy charmingly called his media critics "paedophiles". So perhaps we should have expected similarly dramatic statements in the light of the French rugby team's abject 59-16 capitulation to Australia at the weekend, at the Stade de France.
Ahead 16-13 seven minutes after half-time, France were smashed and humiliated as the Wallabies ran in six tries in the last 32 minutes, four of them in the final quarter of an hour, as France fell apart.
"If the divorce is not consummated, the break is obvious between the players of the French XV and their trainers, between the team and the public, after the humiliating defeat of Les Bleus to the Australians," stated the Monday edition of respected Toulouse-based 'Midi Olympique' newspaper.
humiliation
The critics lined up to assassinate coach Marc Lievremont and his colleagues. Clearly, this humiliation was something no one in France had seen coming. Yet to international observers, it did not greatly surprise. As one Australian journalist told me: "The Wallabies did something I've been expecting them to do for a long while but which I didn't think I'd live to see; they just ran riot.
"I've been reading about all the wrist-slashing going on in the French press and I can't say I'm surprised because Les Bleus looked utterly clueless."
They did that, but then the clues that something like this could happen had been laying all over French rugby fields this season, for those able to see them. It seems that did not include the French themselves.
Club rugby in the Top 14 in France this season has been poor in every sense. Most teams have not had a clue how to embrace the 'new' game possible under these different law interpretations. There has been widespread killing of the ball at breakdowns and the refs have done nothing to stop it because they've been so below par.
Yet it is as though no one in French rugby had the slightest idea that a new game was formulating in the southern hemisphere, one based on speed, attack and a philosophy of keeping ball in hand.
These are the characteristics that used to define French rugby. They were the best in the world at running and handling -- but you hardly see any of that these days in the French game.
In vogue right now in France are players like Sebastien Chabal, who charge forward seeking contact, not space, still less the concept of off-loading in the tackle. Chabal and countless others like him seem to relish the physicality above all else; their entire ambition appears to be to damage the tackler. The notion of taking the tackle but in the same instant off-loading so as to maintain momentum appears completely alien to the French.
space
Australia didn't reach for the drawer marked 'rocket science' in Paris last Saturday. Several of their seven tries were scored off first-phase possession. But what they did do extremely efficiently was time their passes, play in opponents' faces and take them out by making the ball do the work. In this way, they created space and worked players free.
There was nothing very revolutionary about any of that; these are among the fundamental, guiding principles that used to underpin the entire game, before aimless kicking became a plague. Australia handled beautifully, looked for space and had an attacking philosophy... just as the French did years ago.
The supreme irony of the utter shambles of French rugby as 2010 closes is that their players -- and approach to rugby -- of the past would have perfectly suited the contemporary game.
French rugby's problem is that it has been seduced by what it sees as the need for physicality. Picking three lamp-posts like Damien Traille, Yannick Jauzion and Aurelien Rougerie at 10, 12 and 13 simply confirms the mentality. All are huge men but there is no variety, no real speed off the mark or unpredictability. Certainly, none are a Quade Cooper, James O'Connor, Matt Giteau etc.
Until France realise that, under these new law interpretations, a whole lot more than just brutal physicality is required, their game will continue to go nowhere.
- Peter Bills
Irish Independent
