Laporte looking to cut Azzurri down to size

FRANCE coach Bernard Laporte needs his team to put some manners on Pierre Berbizier’s Italians, who have shown up well in their first two matches in the Six Nations despite being on the losing side twice against Ireland and England.

France meanwhile lost to Scotland in their opener and then nearly let slip a seemingly invincible 43-3 lead over the Irish - to end up 43-31 victors.

Berbizier compared to Laporte is a thoroughbred in the sport having been capped 56 times for Les Tricolores and been their scrum-half in the 1997 World Cup final, whereas Laporte was a useful scrum-half without being capped.

Like Laporte, though, 46-year-old Berbizier also guided France to a World Cup semi-final in the controversial defeat to eventual winners and hosts South Africa in 1995 - by contrast Laporte was outmanoeuvred by Clive Woodward in the 2003 renewal.

However, Laporte’s men will start today’s match as hot favourites but Berbizier, who was heavily critical of France at the last World Cup, has engendered a spirit and discipline in the Italy side that was previously missing.

“We are realists,” Berbizier said. “We said at the outset of the tournament we must be at 100% for each match.

“If France play at their top level - they did manage to score 56 points against us last year in Rome after all - and if we are at 100%, the target will be to have a good match.

“If France are not at their best then we could beat them (in what would be their first ever away victory in the Six Nations),” added Berbizier.

As for Laporte, the French and in particular federation president Bernard Lapasset will be hoping that he restrains his feelings for the on-field action and not the reactions of the French crowd, to whom he referred after they booed Frederic Michalak when he went off against the Irish as being ‘pieces of bourgeois shit’.

Laporte has it seems reverted back to veterans recalling Thomas Castaignede at fullback among others - giving France an average cap total of 43.

“The players don’t arrive here with their passports saying they are 32 or 33,” said Laporte. “We have the set up where we can actually watch the players and what they are doing on the pitch,” he added dryly.

As for the crowd it was best left to Fabien Pelous to sum up the reality of the sport. “For us, our priority is not to put on a great spectacle of rugby, but to win matches. And that does not always resemble cinema.

“There is not always a ‘happy end’ a la Hollywood,” said Pelous.