THE newly installed triumvirate of youthful coaches at the helm of the French rugby team are displaying a united front that was missing from Bernard Laporte’s days.

FRANCE are to keep the same coaching staff for the 2004 Six Nations championship but are to review the set-up in April as part of the overhaul planned for the build-up to the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

RENOWNED Bondi Beach, a few miles outside of Sydney, was the spectacular setting yesterday for the utterly predictable French selection to face Ireland in the quarter-final of the World Cup in Melbourne on Sunday.

Bernard Laporte reckons the winner of Sunday’s World Cup quarter-final between France and Ireland will be outsiders to win the Webb Ellis Cup – but he does not believe there is much in it.