Laporte rallies his troops before Ireland visit

FRANCE coach Bernard Laporte rallied his troops on the eve of their Six Nations clash with Ireland at the Stade de France and told them to show far more spirit than they had done in last Sunday’s 20-16 defeat by Scotland.

The 40-year-old Frenchman also tried to put the Scotland reverse behind him saying that he had never expected to go unbeaten in the lead-up to the 2007 World Cup, which is being hosted by France.

“We had to take stock of things and we did that by changing the team,” said Laporte.

“After all for the French team, we have 10 matches in the year, 10 matches where we must not be open to criticism over our spirit.

“Sadly several players failed in this area against Scotland. We cannot accept that we lose because we failed to get stuck in. And what meaning is there to the game if there is no physical contact?”

Laporte said that the Scotland match could be set aside because he had brought back several players like veterans Raphael Ibanez and Olivier Magne, who would be guaranteed to not lack spirit or enthusiasm to get into the thick of the action.

“We can forget about the Scotland match because we have players who have come back and are hungry,” he said.

“This defeat didn’t shatter any illusions, principally because I knew that we would not win all our matches from now till the World Cup.”

However Laporte was brutally honest about where his side stood in comparison to the number one team in the world, the All Blacks.

“On the other hand, lets be clear about one thing - if we played the All Blacks at the moment, we would ship 40 points because we do not compare to them on the athleticism side,” said the former scrum-half and Stade Francais handler.

Laporte said he expected a tough encounter with the Irish, who opened with a none too convincing 26-16 victory over Italy.

“Ireland showed their strengths and their weakenesses in the Italy match, the former being their fly-half Ronan O’Gara and the centres (Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy).

“However we should focus on what we can put into the game and there is a minimum level of aggression and contact one has to bring to a game if one wants to win it.”