Perhaps in France you are not familiar with the 19C onwards thinking on human development? The one that says nurture has a greater impact with increased exposure? To the point where you can take a raw talent and make him into an automaton (join the army) or at the other extreme, a free thinker.

So, in case it's hard to grasp, if you eat one or two turds, you might escape with a bit of food poisoning and recover. Eat years of turds and you either die or become a turd.

c'est vrai, j'ai vu un reportage l'autre jour où ils disaient que la césarienne aboutissait à avoir des enfants avec moins de défenses immunitaires car ils n'étaient du coup pas "infestés" par toutes les saloperies qu'on peu trouver dans "la chatte à leur mère".

je vulgarise un peu, mais c'est quoi ils disaient.

bien vu torq.

Thanks for the lecture.

De rien.

BOD is the real one, the others are mostly writers/fans of Boucherie Ovalie. FaitbienGalthié is not the Galthié you're thinking of no.

A chat about Eng. The 2nd best TEAM in the world. When you look at their players
- they have an ageing and well past his best FB who'd not make any other teams in the top echelons
- 2 wings who are quick-ish but both suspect defensively
- no fetcher. Robshaw is a journeyman grafter and the latest in a long line of 7 1/2 s for Eng
- Youngs is their best SH.... with Care (who has a good kicking game) and Wigglesworth next in the order

And yet Jones makes all this work+ and 2 more things show how a smart coach can build a TEAM
a) Hartley. Wouldn't even make the top 5 in Fra and not even the best hooker in Eng BUT Jones has him in because it's part of the whole he has built.
b) Farrell at 12. A position he hardly ever plays for club. For.... well, forever, I've advocated Fra using a FH who doesn't create much in attack at 12. It gives another kicking option and takes pressure of your attacking, flaky FH.

{EDIT} Forgot. And Cole is sh*te these days.

Torque...
someone who doesn't follow Rugby but has some form of actual common sense who has a glance at France for the past 6 years and then a glance at England under E.Jones, would say: the first seem like they're not a team and don't know what they're doing, the second seem like they're incredibly well trained and know exactly what they're doing.

France have had more talent than England many times during the past few years (as well as, well, forever). Remember 2012, they were nothing on paper apart from Tuilagi, a rookie fukboi team of virgin twats coming into France's backyard with the 2011-RWC finalists Dusautoir Mas Rougerie Clerc crew... and they actually lost that, in Paris.
During that entire Lancaster period, England have been incredibly mediocre talent wise: Marler, Hartley, Dan Cole...Parling, Wood, Robshaw... Youngs, Farrell of that era, Barritt, Twelvetrees... and yet, they won like 80% of their games.

If you look at E.Jones' England vs Noves' France tactically, you'd say the first is the senior England and the second must be the U20 France team. It's impossible the two are in the same league.

ah ouais quand meme... O'driscoll m'a toujours semblé être un petit bonhomme en dehors du terrain, avec un petit cerveau et un gros égo. Nombre de commentaires melonitants et désobligeant envers autrui. Le pauvre a une alaindelonite aiguë... le mec a été bon un jour dans son domaine, mais c'est bien fini, et ya que lui qui continue de se regarder comme à ses grandes heures.

It's like given the same building materials, Jones (or other anglo speaking coaches) manage to build a modern city and Fre coaches build a shanty town.

There are going to be aberrations of the sort in France. France as you and I discuss occasionally is not a country that adapts smoothly, as you say it's revolution or nothing. When you think about the wealth of talent France have had since the pro era, how big the Rugby is here, and the economic means, so the pure potential on paper, and then you look at where the national team has been during PSA, during Noves, drawing with Japan at home.

10 years ago, you threw in a ton of talent on the field, that won you games, no problem, was enough. But France as a nation hasn't identified yet the modern game is about structure, precision, consistency, collective execution. England did, and they put their chauvinistic pride in a drawer and rushed to sign Eddie Jones, an Australian. Now, they're beautiful to watch and utterly dominant.
France couldn't do that. They'd rather sink in their ship with the red-white-n-blue flag waving about proudly than just do the right INTELLIGENT thing and ask for help from abroad. It's pride > intelligence in France, and pride > intelligence fails. I think Laporte is the first guy who may change that, because he's got that counter-French mentality (would've picked a foreign coach if available..).

The successful teams in the country have been the ones heavily tainted by foreign influence: Toulon with their seasoned int'l galactica, Clermont with Cotter and his heir Azéma, today Montpellier with the same Cotter and his Springboks, LaRochelle and their vibrant Oceanians Vitto B.James, Eaton who have brought that winning culture. And France needs as much help from the outside as possible to rip themselves away from their moribund ways.

Such bad faith... Laporte coaching Toulon to victory, the two Laurent, Collazo, Mignoni, Noves...

Juste une question: les fautes débiles, c'est de la faute des coaches? Les dégagements droit sur les défenseurs, les plaquages ratés?

Laporte ? For a coach with that much int'l experience, he's about an avg headcoach. Helps when you've got an armada of world cup winners from all kinds of southern nations (...helps a lot !). I rate the two Laurent, they're good for French coaches but not great. Collazo is alright, but you can't deny the essential impact and leadership of all those veteran Oceanians on the team. Mignoni's good but hasn't been tested at even European level ! and Noves is the worst xv de France headcoach of all-time and surely the worst test coach in the world during those two years (both factually win/loss record, and in the Rugby played).

It's not bad faith at all, look at the best teams in France: they ALL have or had a MAJOR int'l foreign influence. The olden days are over, now you need more than broad themes for a game plan, you need meticulous detailed instructions over every single phase and aspect of the game. Noves is prehistoric, or antiquity at best. Those other coaches are meh compared to the foreign elite, at best. France are just going to HAVE to swallow the pill. They're powerless without foreign influence. Harmless. They need to be much much less French, and much much more foreign-like. And the sooner they integrate that completely, the better !

Our backs play in general remains horrendous. Palis, Lamerat, Vakatawa have been very poor.

Ou defense in general has been terrible, we were torn apart. On a dry pitch the Irish would have past 5 tries on us I am convinced.

Our backrow, for once in a very long time, was excellent for an entire half. That was great to see. Iturria has been our best man on the pitch which also unprecedented in a decade or so for a French second row. That in itself is excellent news.

IT has not got much to do with France here, it's a peculiar moment in the sport history of a nation, we've seen this coming for a long time now and for a myriad of reasons the decline does not seem to be able to stop. In fact it's the others that have improved, not really us playing worse.

In many other sports we remain a superb sorts nation, very successful in many ways, like we've always been.

THIS
The backline did next to nothing again other than Thomas.
- Vakatawa is a joke: so much so, the FFR had to bribe a T14 side to give him a place.
- Other than one break by Doumayrou, the centres offered nothing in offence again. Lamerat is out of his depth at intl level. Not a single good game for Fra in his entire selections.
- Palis is just another in the clone of useless Fre FBs: selected on the seduction of attacking threat when bereft of any of the skills of composure required to be an intl FB.
- Machenaud was slow-ish but not as egg-timer as Serin
- Beauxis was Beauxis. The sublime to the ridiculous.
Iturria is hugely talented. As is Vahaa. Yet Iturria gave away at least 2 dum pens (the one in front of the posts for lying on the wrong side ended the game). He also blew a great attack with a hail mary pass inside (which almost led to a counter attack) when he should have kept possession.

Disagree. Whilst rugby is possibly more on an even keel then it ever has been (bar the ABs), that is down to the mediocrity of everyone other than the ABs. Go talk to Safas or Aussies about the state of their rugby.

Relatively and absolutely France are playing worse: the statistics do not tell lies.

The reasons for being unable to stop the decline are easy.
- 1st you have to acknowledge the problem and only now are there finally some stirrings from playing Rip Van Winkle in France.
- 2nd you have to have the will to change and I doubt that. I doubt that very much.

The argument is on Rugby Union, nothing but Rugby Union. Address that.

Now if you wish, onto other team sports: not really. France have tremendous potential at basketball and suck considering their talent/platform. They've got some superrrrrb players at football from what I know and haven't capitalized on it. They've been utterly brilliant at handball, but that's the exception to the rule, certainly not the rule, and handball is the sport that requires the least amount of strategy and collective structure out of all and is very talent-dominant. France also suck at Rugby league. What else ?

And France hasn't "always been successful" at team sports considering their potential, population and economic means. No. Not really.

Clive Woodward.

I agree: handball ( number 1 in the world), football ( good chance of winning the next world cup), cycling (traditional powerhouse), basketball ( probably not as good as Spain, the Balkans or Lithuania but still up there).

No, you're making it much bigger than that by linking our decline to the supposedly "atavic weaknesses" in our culture at large.

We're excellent at handball, basketball, volley-ball, football. Rugby really has specificities, which are complex, which have sent the sport into the blackhole we are in.

Whilst it may be true of SA (for sure) and Aus (maybe), the British and Irish nations in particular, but also Japan and the Pacific Islands, all play infinitely better rugby than what they used to.

For Ireland it's the Kiwi system. All controlled by the union. Then there has been the skills input by the Kiwi coaches last 10-15 years.

Hé bé putain les gars, c'est pas jojo tout ça.

Pourtant même si cette équipe est merdique, je ne peux pas m'empêcher d'avoir de l'amour pour ces mecs sur le terrain. C'est mon côté gonzesse. Ça me fait chier pour des mecs comme Guirado qui donnent tout.

Mais quand il y a eu le gros plan sur notre président grimaçant en tribune officielle, sapé en survet comme un roumain…

Just watched the match recording there .... Ben arous single handedly lost that game for France

Bauxis was a liability .... as was Serin when he came on

As for Vakatawa ..... he’s a complete joke and sums up Frances problems ..... a collection of individuals with no discernible attacking strategy

A win against Ireland last week would have been a ‘get out of jail’ moment .... today’s match was a ‘shoot yourself in the foot’ moment. That game was there for the winning....

The English Premier league is the richest and most internationally mixed in Europe. The best English players are under-represented at all levels and especially in the top teams. And yet. There are rarely any easy matches for the top teams. The players know that they earn their living by playing for their clubs, not their country.

By money earned per player the England side must be one of the worst performing national teams losing to Iceland in France.

It may be about rugby but there are parallels elsewhere.

Today, after a bright if not faultless first half, France didn't have the mental freshness or physical fitness to carry on in the second half and they were easily pressured into giving away penalties. It was all inevitable long before Scotland levelled.

Basketball: no France are not excellent at basketball, they've been good in places but not regularly, at the European level they're nothing compared to the Eastern nations like Serbia or Lithuania despite money, infrastructure, talent, and openness to the world. Of late they made the 2000 Olympic final, and won the Eurobasket a few summers back. That's it..

Football: they're very far from excellent. Won one WC two decades ago, two Euros. Globally, they are not a top nation, the top nations are Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Spain or others, those are the "excellent nations".

Rugby: not excellent. Considering their wealth of resources and talent, no WC win in 8 iterations. Pretty good 6N record. Finally, have been a farce in the developed modern day version. Currently tenth. People will remember "french flair" more than an "excellent team".



No, actually I'm saying France are by far the poorest nation coaching wise in the competitive Rugby world and have been for a very long time now.

The difference in level between the avg pro coach in France and the avg pro coach in, say, Australia is humongous. The British/Ire and Saffers are also comfortably better globally, and let's not even discuss NZ'ers. The top coaches are all foreigners, the French can't compare, not any of the little list of Mignoni Collazo and the Lolo's. Galthié is a joke, Novès a dinosaur, the Jeff Dubois, JB Elissalde or Patrice Lagisquet are clearly bums... Bru is lighter than Baptiste Serin, Mola is hilarious... the only good one right now is Frank Azéma and he hasn't got much of a typically French coach in his demeanor, team preparation, attention to detail or strictness.

the end of times... and irishman knowing about handball... what next ? a sober irishman ??!

Bad news is (for you guys at least), we've wisened up and actually started to give a shieet about youth development in rugby, hence our recent improvement over the past 4/5 years in the U20 WC.

There are lots of promising young players coming through in England at the moment. We used to have the numbers, but not the quality. Now we have the quality due to better coaching being spread and more professional approaches. Believe me, within 5-6 years England will have an amazing back row.

Also, Rugby has boomed in popularity here after the 2003 WC win. The kids (or parents who pushed their kids in to playing) who started playing after that are hardly even 18 yet. The best is yet to come. This could have happened in France if it wasn't for a dodgy referee in 2011.

France and England should be the top 2 countries in Rugby, simply due to population and wealth. That probably will happen eventually, along with Argentina. South Africa maybe if they get more blacks playing.

Also, as a last thing, big thanks to you all for writing most of your stuff in English. Love reading your views on the games, and who you each blame for France's recent failures

Knob.

Ah ça, il était beau le président... On aurait dit un petit vieux mourant.

Yes, I tend to agree. Ben Arous was just so out of sort, just like Vahaamahina last time against Ireland.

To me, fitness was the first issue. The French were in the red after 20min of intense rugby. From that point, they started to make silly mistakes and lost any sort of collective shape.

The second issue was mental. Where the Scots , despite some jaw dropping mistakes, stayed focused and remained in the game, the French liquefied as the Scots started their come back and individuals started to try to win the game by themselves, including giving away silly penalties.

And the much lauded defense which held against an Irish attack playing tight, was exposed by a much more dynamic Scottish attack. The number of missed tacles was incredible.

And most of this has nothing to do with Brunel.

Do you think we'll finally see the concession that playing a guy at intl level in a complex team sport when he wasn't even playing for a club is utterly brain damaged.

Not that it'd have changed any fundamental issues, but really got the feeling that Palis cost the team that win. Poor game overall, some unfortunate kicking, and terrible decision-making when kicking that ball back to the Scots rather than boot it out, with the second Scottish try at the end of it. Momentum is a big thing and for the Scots to come back immediately after conceding a try shaped the rest of the game.

On the positives, how hot is Thomas right now? Haven't watched him much in T14 but sheesh, he's shown some pace and vision in those two games. Really hope he'll deal with it better than the last time, it's rather refreshing after years of Huget.

And the records keep on coming although this is a tentative one (see footnote*):

Most consecutive matches without a win for a top 10 nation in the professional era. Congratulations Noves, Brunel and FFR. 3rd world stuff.

(*Italy did 13 in '08 but don't think they were top 10 then?).

We've discussed Thomas before: he is undoubtedly talented but has discipline issues with authority i.e. clearly a bit cocky. But you know what, it's actually refreshing to see a Fre player strut around like Liam Williams or Mike Brown and say "I know I'm good".

Yes. That dreadful kick cost the game as much as this sh*te did from Dulin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6bIB1yrglc

This is pretty fundamental stuff that I was taught as a 13 year old at school.

More than just individuals, the team lost its shape and composure.

But in terms of individuals, only Camara, Lauret and Thomas seemed above the rest of the team. The forwards did a decent job in the rucks but did not dominate as expected. Beauxis blew hot and cold with some howlers but some good passing at some time, Ben Arous and Serin were terrible when they came in, Vakatawa continues to sink lower and lower...

To me, his fitness was the issue. With tiredness, he started to make strange choices and kick the ball very poorly. Yet at the beginning, I was hoping to see the promising 10 he once was deliver the goods finally.

It's funny how it feels like he's just out there playing rugby, not making a living through it. So yeah, that means ridiculously high-risk moves at times in games where you never want to see them, but he's pretty decent otherwise. He's pretty much on par with our other options at 10 imho so hopefully he gets a few more games. Think the last french 10 I really liked was Merceron. It's been a while...

Thomas has his tries for him, but it doesn't eclipse his questionable defence and the fact he tends to forget his teammates. The day he'll leave the field w/o scoring and after butchering a try opportunity or looking like a revolving door in defence, the public might no be that nice with him. But then try scorers benefit for some sort of immunity to w/e crap they can pull in other aspects of the game.