A week earlier, there was the end of the match against South Africa. A physical decline which transformed the shock of the fall for the Blues into the start of a rout at the Stade de France (17-32).
This time, the location has changed. The opponent too. And the temporality of the air gap as well. In Bordeaux, Saturday evening, the Tricolores, who were heading for a walk against the Fijians, after three tries scored in 19 minutes, went through a slump that was as impressive as it was surprising.
From 21-0, therefore, they went twenty-four minutes later to 21-21 (43rd)… Before snatching the victory (34-21) thanks to Nicolas Depoortere’s second try nine minutes from time. Rather surprising in the face of a selection (9th in the world ranking) which had only won once, in 2018, in twelve matches against the Blues until then.
“It’s discipline”
“We made mistakes which gave them possession,” Fabien Galthié tried to explain. It’s discipline. We are whistled (penalized) 9 times at this time. Afterwards, it stopped. This is an obvious point of improvement for us. »
Discipline… The word invariably comes up as soon as a team takes to the water. “This is an area to improve, the penalties we took clearly put us in a difficult situation,” said center Nicolas Depoortere. But why, precisely, all these mistakes at this time?
Faced with the revolting Fijians, the Blues seemed surprisingly passive, to the point of also missing a multitude of tackles. “It’s quite simply because we confused tackling and scratching,” adds the coach. So we consumed too many players in the rucks. We need to play together to experience these stressful and precarious situations and find collective harmony. It was only our second match. »
In the corridors of the Atlantique stadium in Bordeaux, a good hour after the match, its players are also looking for answers. “Against these teams, we have to be really united,” underlines Anthony Jelonch. There were missed tackles. We know that they are very strong individually. Maybe we should have tackled more together to avoid that. »
Maxime Lucu said nothing else: “Our defensive circulation was not well in place, we said we wanted to tackle them two, we too often found ourselves outnumbered and with their qualities, they are adept at that. We were late on the outside and with their extraordinary physical qualities, it hit the mark. » “We will have to analyze all of this,” continues Nicolas Depoortere.
There will be video sessions at Marcoussis (Essonne), the training center where the Blues return this Sunday. But in the end, it’s difficult to know exactly what happened.
“There were doubts”
“However, we expected them at this level,” adds Anthony Jelonch. Last week at Twickenham, until the 60th minute they were in the game (38-18 defeat). We expected a big fight. There are a lot of Fijian players in our league, they wanted to show us that they know how to play as a team. On our side, of course there were doubts. But we showed courage. » This is the positive point of the evening.
Tossed around, passive, no longer knowing what to do, the Blues still found the resources to emerge from their torpor and avoid the fiasco that was looming. “We started with the basics,” slips Maxime Lucu. “It’s a selection that has a lot of value,” concludes Fabien Galthié. We must take the measure of the adversary. The French team has fulfilled its contract. It turned out as we imagined. »
Not quite anyway, because these unanswered air gaps are cause for concern, even if Australia, which looms next Saturday at the Stade de France, was swept away by Ireland (46-19) after having suffered the law of Italy (26-19)…
