Big favorite for the final victory in the Six Nations Tournament, crowned with three convincing victories to start the 2022 edition, the French rugby team arrives in Cardiff with the wind at their back. At the time of facing Wales, Friday March 11 (at 9 p.m.) for their fourth meeting of the Tournament, the Blues seem to have reconnected with the “French flair” of their predecessors, this “ability to improvise” praised by the general manager, Raphaël Ibanez, when the team was taken over by the new staff in 2019.
But the flights of the wingers or the tricolor hinge should not make us forget the work done by their partners in the front lines (the players who form the scrum). “When your forwards are able to show such subtlety to go along with their ferocity, you’re in the game,” summarized the BBC Scotland after the French demonstration against the XV du Chardon (36-17), on February 26.
“These Blues have a bunch of chameleon forwards, they have the ability to adapt to the circumstances”, explains former French third line Imanol Harinordoquy. “They can both play really hard, be rough and hurt the opposing team, while being hypermobile,” develops the one who won the Tournament five times (including three Grand Slams, in 2002, 2004 and 2010). He sees it “the ideal characteristics of modern rugby forwards”, now practiced at the highest level: they are “solid and mobile”.
The not so long ago when the first two lines were made up of players as massive as they were static, “with third lines who were there to run around the four corners of the field”, seems definitely over with the Blues, insists Harinordoquy. Incubated by Thibault Giroud, the performance director of the France team, the French forwards are in good shape; world rugby nations, one after the other, are breaking their teeth on their pack.
Even the colossus Uini Atonio – 1.97 meters for 147 kilos, according to the figures of the XV of France – has refined to gain mobility. “There has been a physical evolution in him, but Uini has always had enormous physical potential,” noted the forwards coach, William Servat, a few weeks ago.
“Today, he is in full possession of his means”, and composes with Baille and Marchand an impressive first line, where brute force competes with dexterity. “Their complementarity is first of all in the order of competence”, insists coach Fabien Galthié, who praises the healthy competition with the “finishers” – or substitutes -, allowing to increase the level of his “big guys”.
The speed advantage
“We try to play fast with passes after contact. It was part of our strategy to advance as much as possible and to put speed in their defense, ” exposed Cyril Baille at the end of the French victory in Scotland. A training flyhalf – a while ago – and very comfortable with the ball in hand, the tricolor left pillar never hesitates to take part in the game.
Evidenced by his action leading to the second French try in Edinburgh: three Scottish defenders on the overcoat, Baille managed to serve Yoram Moefana inside, while ten seconds earlier, he scrapped with the forwards in a carried ball, at the other end of the field. “He can move very quickly. As he knows how to read the actions well, he weighs on our offensive game, ” greeted his coach.
Considered one of the best players in the world in his position – if not the best – the Toulousain arouses praise. ” He has one [telle] dexterity with the ball, he could play with three-quarters! », enthused his first line friend Julien Marchand. “Well, he doesn’t have the cash register, he doesn’t have the cardio, continues the tricolor hooker smiling, but it has the vista. Ball in hand, he is good. »
He is not the only one, above all: like his teammate at the Blues and at the Toulouse Stadium, Marchand himself had moved to the front line for a major story; he was too stocky ” and [doté] probably not enough lungs” to hope to break through to the highest level in his third line position, he explained in 2020.
“When I see the activity of a Cyril Baille or a Julien Marchand, who run everywhere, who scratch balloons… Not to mention the second lines, Cameron Woki, Paul Willemse or Thibaud Flament and Romain Taofifenua [absent à Cardiff, à la suite d’un test positif au Covid-19, mercredi 9 mars], who also have an enormous ability to moveemphasizes Imanol Harinordoquy. Today, we play with almost eight third rows. »
The post overrun
In the rugby in perpetual motion wanted by Fabien Galthié and his staff, the positions sometimes seem secondary. Wingers Gabin Villière and Damian Penaud – the latter is also forfeited due to a positive test for Covid-19 – have thus “complete freedom to dezone and look for work in the four corners of the field”, exposes Laurent Labit, the coach of the tricolor attack. They can even “working with the forwards”. Difficult for the opposing team to adapt to such fluidity.
And the XV of France may not have finished with the experiments. “We try to work on several scenarios”, reported this week the third row François Cros. One of them would see it shifted to the center, “in the event of a bench with six forwards and two backs, and with two injured behind”. If this eventuality remains improbable, however, the French coach praised the versatility of the Toulouse player“an excellent first center”.
To explain the new ease of the Blues to realize their opportunities, “there is already the work of the shadow of the frontsgreeted winger Gabin Villière this week. There are a lot of accelerations when you don’t have the ball. It doesn’t necessarily show, but these things allow the team to be quickly in place, quickly ready to move forward”.
In the nocturnal clamor in Cardiff on Friday, facing the vengeful Welsh defending champions after a failed start to the Tournament, the Blues hope to prolong their state of grace. Starting with the fronts.