A Winning Attitude - Part One: Adieu To All That
Someone asked me the other day why France would play a man like Mathieu Bastareaud at number 13 and my answer was, “Why not?” If all you are attempting to do is smash over the gain line inch by inch, why would you not select Bastareaud? If all you are attempting to do is crush the opposition with power, why would you not select Bastareaud?
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I know what the questioner was asking me. At the All Blacks we have had Conrad Smith, a thinker and a ball player in the number 13 position. It is traditionally a creative position. It is a key link to the big outside world.
But France don’t play like that any more. They do not want to play like that. There was a period in the match against Wales when it seemed that the French midfield didn’t touch the ball for 20 minutes. The scrum-half Maxime Machenaud is slow and doesn’t create anything. Frederik Michalak is not Renaissance Man. The creativity has been coached out of this team. French flair is a fairytale that is never coming back.
Let me tell you a story about a four-year-old girl. The teacher asks her what she is drawing and the little girl replies that she is drawing God.
“But we don’t know what God looks like,” says the teacher.
“You will in a minute,” says the little girl.
The current generation of French players don’t know what flair looks like. Serge Blanco, Philippe Sella and Dider Codorniou would not get into this French team. Especially not Codorniou. Too small. He probably wouldn’t even get to play Top 14. What’s the point?
The current French half back puts his foot on the ball, has a look round, then passes it to someone who smashes into another brick wall. And on and on, times fifteen, moving the same way across the pitch until there is only a centimetre left to the touchline. Then they come back and do it the other way.
You could hear the frustration in the voice of Jonathan Davies on commentary. Here were the two Gallic teams of world rugby, the teams who are supposed to play with soul, but where was the imagination. Davies would call out the space and another player would run into a wall.
French flair requires optimism but at the moment I don’t see that in their players. We know that Francois Trinh-Duc and Wesley Fofana have a little magic, but it will soon be coached out of them. I hope it all changes against England, and French power could still be enough to beat almost any team on their day, but there is no sign of it at the moment.
Maybe we now see Marc Lievremont, the coach at the last World Cup, in a different light. He did at least get them to play some rugby from time to time. Maybe that’s why he got such flak from everyone. He was out there on his own. The lone nut. A man living in the past. There is no time for total rugby any more. French flair is just a kid’s painting.
This is the industrial age.
Is the Gallic flair gone for good from the French? Comments below…
Posted under News & Opinions
3 months ago
I often watch this video and lament the state of French rugby today. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X50vaqyxZZA – The ‘war of attrition’ style favoured by French Top 14 sides constrains creativity and spontaneity and this transcends into international rugby – a real shame.
3 months ago
Here is another observation, Yannick Nyanga has to be the unluckiest international player. He he is such a capable and dynamic player and has rarely put a foot wrong when playing for France. He is perceived to be undersized but he certainly isn’t undersized in the heart department
3 months ago
Great point on Lievremont! I remember at least one game where his back three consisted of Medard, Palisson and Andreu – they created havoc all over the park with their speed and agility. St Andre did introduce Fofana, but now has slotted him outside two centres who never pass.
3 months ago
Lievremont was right on the money when he took over, asking players to take risks, to play with “flair”, and Elissalde at scrumhalf was perfect for it and would dynamite it all. But if I remember correctly, it all went down the drain on the 2nd year, during the 6 Nations, when France lost to Ireland. I’m more than convinced that the “thinkers” within the Federation asked Lievremont to stop this “nonsense”, just because the forwards couldn’t keep up with the pace… Now, the only thing we have left is the scrum; and even that… After all, you hear all coaches in the Top14 saying this after 2 defeats: “we are going back to the fundamentals, the basics, we play simple rugby”. And apparently, “fundamentals” here means piles and piles of rucks, one-pass attacks, slow ball, muscle only, no brain allowed… Players are now conditioned to play that way…
3 months ago
I am pleased that a rugby man of the stature and track record of Wayne Smith has chosen to highlight the march of the muscle man in rugby. When coaching started back in the early 70’s somebody asked Ray Williams one of the pioneers of Welsh coaching if coaching would not knock the flair out of players.Ray’s reply was " I don’t believe in bad coaching either!"
3 months ago
Gallic Flair? The halcyon years of French rugby? I am not sure I agree. France just used to run the ball in an era of loose defences and individual tackling! With defence the way it is now it is not possible to play in the same way. France on the front foot and with time and space to run against Australia a few short months ago played with so called flair. Since then they seem to have lost the ability to get on the front foot hence as Wayne says select Bastereaud to try and get some go forward again. It interests me that people keep poking France with the same stick – no flair – especially when they are losing. Yet as a measure of success has it really worked for them. 0 world cups. Perhaps they have a team that are just playing poorly at the moment.
3 months ago
It’s called pressure, the same the whole world over; but in France, it comes from an outside edge, the necessity of achieving what is expected. I coach at a lowly level in the order of things in France and see it’s influence every match day. The expectation of what should be achieved using a player base which has a fragile mentality when coping with that hidden expectation. There are some amazing players with such potential, yet to be plumbed, if only……………..
3 months ago
That French victory over Australia had one moment of flair for my liking, a great dummy and step by Michalak that sent Fofana over. The large score-line was more a product of Australian ineptitude at scrum time than any sort of ‘gallic flair’. The French are mercurial, they always have been (case in point: prior to their fabled 2-0 victory of New Zealand in 1994, France lost en route in Canada!). But it does seem that the mercurial highs aren’t as high and the lows are lower.
3 months ago
When Saint-Andre selects Machenaud over Parra is a clear option in the way of what I call the top 14 “percentage game” (industrial age is a nice expression). Top 14 normal style is a boring closed game, and that’s what we see more and more in the French national team. That’s the way the players play day-to-day. But if we look at the U18 french team – I saw a couple of matches and training sessions recently – we see that they still have flair, risk, some magic moments. The kids go up and the flair goes down. The U20 play is already different. Modern rugby tactics, the industrial age? Yes, but maybe we need to look to current league attack systems and get ideas to overcome the league defensive systems. Maybe we need to coach the teams in order to play a more effective short kicking game – we saw how effective can be, once again, in the Brumbies-Reds game, and other strategies against the pressure defence. The old french style? Once more I agree with Wayne: French flair is a fairytale that is never coming back. The new attacking rugby is different; we can have nice runs from counter-attacks or first phase plays, no longer against organized defences at top level – only by poor defence :).
3 months ago
The game is becoming more like rugby league with too many ‘gym monkeys’ and not enough Brian O’Driscoll’s. Positional skill sets are being lost throughout. The All Blacks brought in SBW to bosh the ball forward..he was definitely not an all round skillful center.
3 months ago
Des, are you serious about SBW??? Besides, correct me if I’m wrong but he was an inside center, not an outside such as O’Driscoll; big difference in the job description… When everyone is calling a certain pass after your name, I’m pretty sure you can be deemed skillful.
3 months ago
To clarify, Joel,.. centers in general….I’m was implying that skillful footballing centers like BOD, Conrad Smith, Aaron Majors or Giteau are being replaced by the Bastereaud, SBW, Tuilagi type players. I don’t believe SBW was the first to use the back-handed offload, just used it more effectively.
3 months ago
I see your point Des. I would say that SBW was the exception confirming the rule, as I believe that he is way more skillful than Bastareaud for instance, without a doubt…
about 1 month ago
Wayne you should have added underneath in small print “For the people from South Africa replace France with South Africa”
We got this young flyhalf plays flat good vision got a boot the works. Then the Bulls sign him and brainwash him. End product a 10 standing so deep the flankers need bicycles to get near him and kicks everything a way with the vision of a mole under a spotlight.
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