Three areas that will decide this semi-final: Wales v France

1. Half-back mastery

ONLY the French could somehow get away with the daft plan to abandon four years of painstaking development in a key area at the 11th hour and go with something left of field. The decision once again by Marc Lievremont to select Morgan Parra at out-half ahead of the more traditional skills of Francois Trinh-Duc is about to be put under the ultimate scrutiny. For sheer presence of character alone, Dimitri Yachvili has to start in this team and he, quite rightly in my opinion, retains the scrum-half berth. Along with the irrepressible Imanol Harinordoquy, he has now taken ownership of the team after that mid-tournament crisis defeat to Tonga.

The problem is Parra — fine player that he is — does not possess the game management skills to direct a team from No 10. In addition, it is inevitable he will have the considerable bulk of Jamie Roberts — taller and heavier than Harinordoquy, by the way — bearing down on him early and often. You can just see Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards tweaking the Welsh game plan to ensure the link between Parra and the menacing threat of the French outside backs is cut off at source.

Wales have been superb at half back all tournament with Rhys Priestland defying all the odds to start ahead of Stephen Jones and James Hook. Injury has now intervened and it will be interesting to see whether the recall of Hook has any impact on the chemistry of the side.

It helps when you have a fit, focused and disciplined Mike Phillips controlling matters at scrum-half. In the past, he was easily distracted and didn’t always play for the team. Now that he has seen such established stars as Stephen and Ryan Jones, Hook and Lee Byrne sacrificed for the greater good, he is playing the rugby of his life and was instrumental in toppling Ireland last week. If he succeeds in containing the influence of Yachvili in this contest, then Wales could be on their way to a World Cup final.

2. Back row domination

FOR Wales to have any chance of dumping Ireland out of the World Cup last weekend, they knew they had to stop them from generating any momentum. When their brains trust sat down to work out how to achieve that, it became abundantly clear where the battle lines would be drawn. They had to stop the rampaging Irish back row trio of Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip and Stephen Ferris. Easier said than done when you have a callow back row with an average age of 22 and one of those charges, Dan Lydiate, had little rugby and even less sleep — he got up every two hours over a three-day period to ice his injured leg — under his belt. The omens weren’t great.

The fact that Ferris and O’Brien were nullified by a voracious Welsh pack who constantly double-teamed in the tackle, said everything about their hunger for battle. The work rate of the second row pairing of Alun Wyn Jones and Luke Charteris in augmenting the efforts of Lydiate and Toby Falatou in the contact area also enabled the highly effective Sam Warburton to do what he does best — generate turnovers.

Meanwhile up in Auckland, France were disposing of the English on the back of a mercurial performance from a revitalised back row of under pressure captain Thierry Dusautoir, Julien Bonnaire and Harinordoquy. They set the ground rules and transformed a French side that were passive, unimaginative and brooding only a week earlier. If France are to fire with the same passion they rediscovered against England, the lead must come from the back row, and Harinordoquy in particular.

France have beaten Wales in their last three meetings and who knows how that will play on their warped psyche coming into this contest? If they have their homework done, then it is clear that Dusautoir has to do a number on Warburton and produce the type of performance that has entered rugby folklore when he made 34 tackles and scored a try in that remarkable win over New Zealand in the quarter final four years ago.

3. Positive mentality

TOMORROW’s semi-final will be won and lost in the head. Given that the French, even by their own admission, have grave difficulty in producing back-to-back performances, you wonder if they have successive high octane performances in them. It sounds ridiculous that a side should struggle to be mentally ‘up’ for a World Cup semi-final but that is the difficulty with this particular French outfit. They are all over the place and really shouldn’t even be here after losing two of their pool games. Meeting England when they did in the quarter-final after the Tonga debacle suited their mentality. Returning home with a victory over their greatest enemy offered redemption from what had been a disastrous tournament to that point. A French team playing without a fear factor and a physical edge is a recipe for Gallic disaster and this could be one of those occasions.

Question is, are Wales in a position to capitalise? I think they are. It has been a remarkable few weeks for the Welsh. Prior to the tournament I really feared for their chances of advancing from a very demanding pool. Yet right from the outset when they lost to reigning champions South Africa by a single point, they have grown. That narrow defeat reinforced their newfound belief that they could achieve something special here. Ireland’s defeat of Australia also made up for the defeat to the Springboks as it opened up an easier passage to a potential final appearance. They were also fortunate to meet Samoa only four days after the islanders had played Namibia and made the most of that. Since then they have made their own luck and are now full of confidence, self belief and, crucially, they’re playing quality rugby.

If ever a positive mindset offered a key difference between two sides in a big contest, then this could be the one.