The scar is always painful, digestion particularly slow. More than two weeks after the elimination of the French XV in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup against South Africa (29-28), the time is still for sadness, and for explanations. Fabien Galthié, however, always remains discreet. Since his post-match press conference, the Blues coach has not spoken. A “silence that annoys”, as L’Équipe wrote on the front page of its newspaper this Wednesday.
However, the wait may still be long. Indeed, no media intervention is planned until a global press conference, which will take place at the end of November. A justified decision according to the French Rugby Federation, which ensures that “almost all of the coaches have not yet debriefed the competition in detail outside the media framework provided by World Rugby. »
The explanations will therefore have to wait a little longer. The future of Fabien Galthié was clarified the day after his elimination. Under contract until 2028, his place is in no way threatened. “It’s not a one-night defeat that changes anything,” Florian Grill, president of the FFR, assured us. I look at the last 4 years, the progress of the France team is phenomenal, this team is still young. The result is not up to the level of the work accomplished over the past 4 years, it does not reward this investment but we absolutely must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The work accomplished over the past 4 years remains absolutely remarkable. »
The French are also pleading for Fabien Galthié to remain as coach. A survey carried out by Odoxa for Winamax and RTL on October 18 and 19 among 1,005 people revealed that 87% of French people were “unanimously satisfied with the extension of Fabien Galthié’s mandate”. The fact remains that the disappointment of this World Cup in France is great. The coach’s next speech should help appease him.
