Fabién Galthié did something unheard of this week, at least in his time running the French national team, and named an identical matchday squad for a second week running. It’s the first time France have fielded the same 23 men from one week to the next since Galthié’s predecessor, Jacques Brunel, did it back in the spring of 2019. Galthié says it’s because of the short turnaround between the fourth and fifth rounds of the championship. His side played in Cardiff last Sunday, came home that evening, took one day off, did one hard day’s training, and travelled to Lyon on Thursday ready for the captain’s run on Friday.
It’s a show of faith in the team that beat Wales 45-24, one that anyone who saw the way they defended in that match may wonder whether they really deserve, but also a sign of the times.
The French have had a bad championship, and haven’t won a home game since last October when they put 60 points on Italy in this city. Since then they’ve been beaten by New Zealand in Paris, thrashed by Ireland in Marseille, and were lucky to get away with a draw against Italy in Lille when Paolo Garbisi missed a conversion in the final minute.
Galthié’s job isn’t under threat, yet, not least because the French Federation lost so much money on the World Cup that the last thing they want to do now is buy him out of a contract that runs up to the next tournament. But people are beginning to get restless. If they can beat England on Saturday, they will probably end up second in the table despite it all, there’s even a scenario in which they could end up winning the title. But if they lose, they could find themselves down in fifth place.
The team may have stayed the same week on week, but it’s a very different side to the one Galthié put out against Ireland in the opening round. Some of the missing players, such as Matthieu Jalibert, are injured, others, such as Jonathan Danty, are suspended, but the rest of the changes look more like mistakes. The locks who started that match, Paul Willemse and Paul Gabrillagues, are long gone, and so is one of their replacements, Cameron Woki. Yoram Moefana, who was picked out of position on the wing, and Maxime Lucu, who was trusted to start at scrum-half, have been shuffled again, and are back on the bench.
Rumours have been swirling that Woki walked out after being omitted from the squad for the game against Wales, although Galthié denies it. He says the player is simply being rested because of his heavy workload. It can be a hard life, playing in France. The Top 14 started up the day after the World Cup final, and Woki and the rest of the French were back in full training just a couple of weeks later for the round of fixtures in mid-November. There’s a lingering sense that Galthié underestimated just how jaded some of his players were at the start of this championship.
Galthié denies that, too. But he has said that the single most important moment of the tournament was a training session held before the game against Wales, when two separate XVs squared off against each other for starting places that weekend. “We managed to remobilise our team,” he says, “There was real competition, no player gave up, everyone wanted to get the jersey.” The team that emerged from it, with three 21-year-olds, Nicolas Depoortère, Nolann Le Garrec, and Léo Barré, at centre, scrum-half, and full-back, is certainly a lot younger, and fresher, than the one that started the tournament.
If Galthié has been criticised for being slow to change his players, it’s true, too, that there has also been a lot of talk about the alterations he made to his coaching staff. Laurent Labit and Karim Ghezal, who ran the attack and the lineout respectively, have joined Stade Français. Neither area has been functioning as well under their replacements, Patrick Arlettaz and Laurent Semperé.
Charles de Gaulle asked how anyone could govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese, for much of the decade before Galthié took over, it was fair to ask whether anyone could possibly run a national team representing 2,000-odd rugby clubs.
For the last five years, the results Galthié won have held everyone together in coalition. He was allowed to pick larger squads, was given more access to his players, and more control over their workloads. He’s already had to give up some of those privileges now the World Cup has been and gone. It’s been 20 years since France last won three matches in a row against the English.
Galthié’s team have taken the last two. It feels like they will need to do it again this weekend, to persuade everyone to fall back in line behind him as they head into the future.
