In the aisles of the Stade de France on Saturday evening, the atmosphere was one of self-criticism. The Blues, although clear winners (48-33) over Australia, were many who preferred to remember the negative points of this match, and of the autumn tour in general: the defense (five tries conceded on Saturday, 12 in the three matches in November, 22 missed tackles), and its corollary, indiscipline (12 penalties, a free kick and a yellow card conceded).
We almost forget that the Blues beat Australia by scoring almost 50 points. “There aren’t many French teams that have done that,” recalls the experienced Gaël Fickou. “I prefer to retain the pleasure that we have rediscovered offensively”, also underlines a Louis Bielle-Biarrey with the rediscovered canes (two tries and two assists). Before recognizing for himself the two pitfalls of the evening: “In defense, we were a little light at times. The discipline was also a little complicated. We were often caught offside…”
“There are dark spots, including discipline,” insists Thomas Ramos, impeccable on Saturday evening, but grumpy after the match. We gave them too much opportunity to come back to us, to take penalties again, to be able to get back into our 22 meters. We’ve given them way too much ammunition for them to exist tonight. »
“We are not disciplined enough to play at this level”
Same observation for Gaël Fickou. “Our indiscipline is what left them in the match,” complains the Racing 92 player. “Otherwise they didn’t have much, they didn’t put us in any big trouble.” By turning to 19-19 at the break, the Blues scared themselves. However, they were warned, after two first matches against South Africa (17-32) and Fiji (34-21) where their mistakes had already weighed them down.
“We tell ourselves to be disciplined and we are not,” laments Ramos. We tell ourselves that our discipline is not good in last week’s match, we focus on that during the week, and we attack an international match by taking a penalty after a minute, a minute and a half…” “Discipline was the focus of the week, but it was not successful, confirms Bielle-Biarrey. We are not disciplined enough to play at that level. »
Arbitration and too much desire
How can we explain these too many mistakes? “We have always been very good in this area, and on this tour, I don’t know what happened,” Fickou is still surprised. It will be necessary to have a cold return. » The refereeing, a little different between the Top 14 and international matches, is the beginning of an explanation. “In the Top 14, it’s a different way of refereeing, it’s perhaps a little more lax in the rucks. There, nothing happens, that’s how it is,” recalls Fickou.
The second row Emmanuel Meafou, who had the emotion of playing with the Blues against his country of origin, in front of his family, notes an overflow of desire to explain these placement errors. “When you’re a little under pressure, everyone does a little too much, we go offside because we want too much,” believes the Toulouse colossus. But we will manage to correct all that between now and the Six Nations Tournament. »
Faced with very picky teams in this area, starting with the Irish who will meet the Blues at the opening of the Tournament right here at the Stade de France on February 5, we will have to correct things. “The indiscipline on this tour cost us a lot,” admits Fickou. It’s good to be aware of that, because at the Six Nations we won’t have any margin for error…”
