New faces keep eye on the big picture
As the incoming coaches of France, Italy and England respectively stare into their first championships at the helm of national teams, they embark on three very different missions from diverse starting points and with markedly varied expectations.
For Saint-André, a French try-scoring hero on the field during the 1990s, there is the task of shedding the lunatic elements of the previous regime of Marc Lievremont while building on his scarcely believable feat of taking Les Bleus to the brink of World Cup triumph.
The Italians, meanwhile, are banking on the experience of another Frenchman, former Perpignan coach Brunel, to build on the work of Nick Mallett and take the Azzurri to a higher, more consistent and title-contending level.
And then there’s England, their rugby reputation in tatters after a disastrous World Cup on and off the field. For the Red Rose, the stormy Martin Johnson era and all the unwanted baggage that surprisingly attached itself to such a steadfast and winning talent is over. And while they continue to search for a long-term successor the Rugby Football Union have turned to a caretaker, Lancaster, to steer them into calmer waters.
Three new coaches, and three quite different objectives, but with a whistle not yet blown on the 2012 championship, the trio are each talking a good game.
“When you’ve lost the final of a World Cup, to New Zealand by one point, I think it was a positive experience for this team,” the former Sale, Gloucester and Toulon coach Saint-André said last week in London. “The pool stage was tough for France but when they arrived in the quarter-final and semi-final and you win those you saw the French team get stronger and stronger and they showed character and a lot of commitment and with a fantastic leader in Thierry [Dusautoir].
“He was the best player in the world last year and the players followed him during the tournament and for a coach it’s important to have a leader like this, with a lot of charisma.
“So it’s quite exciting but for a coach, you want to prepare a lot of things and we don’t have too much time so we need to be very pragmatic and very clever for the first game against Italy”
The former wing resisted the temptation to wield the axe on Lievremont’s squad, retaining the majority of the side that started the World Cup final last October but also recalling several players overlooked by his predecessor, such as fly-half Lionel Beauxis, and introducing fresh talent like Clermont centre Wesley Fofana, who will start the opening game against Brunel’s Italy in Paris tomorrow.
“We need to think about now but we also need to think about the future so we need to find a balance between experience and new young guys with talent that we feel are quite ready to play international rugby,” Saint-André explained.
Brunel’s objectives are all with the future in mind but with last year’s famous win over France in Rome as the base point rather than a World Cup campaign which fell flat with a last pool game defeat to Ireland. His captain, Sergio Parisse, is certainly on board with the game plan.
“Last year we had a historic victory against France and we’ve shown that we can be competitive against any team. Now the next step to be credible as a team is to be contenders in the Six Nations.
“That’s the idea of Jacques, he’s trying to take us to the next step, not just to have a couple of points against a team but to have results. That’s very important.”
The bespectacled Brunel will approach his task with a nature that fits his academic appearance.
“I hope I can work with the team to make sure it goes up all the other levels it needs to go up to, to be the best team in the championship,” he said.
“The team lacks in certain aspects that we need to work but we now need to get this balance, to work together on the mind and build the mental approach to grow further from a team which is fighting to win each time to being a more offensive, more dominant team. That comes through spirit but also through trust.”
If Brunel’s targets for this pending Six Nations tournament are any reflection, he is not expecting a breakthrough any time soon.
“It’s not about the number of victories or the results of specific fixtures,” the new coach said, tellingly. “Italy, of course, has to be close to victory. We need to get to the possibility of victory but we need to be able to improve the squad to get to that next level. That’s all about content, spirit and trust so we can improve those various aspects of the game that we need to be a better team.”
England’s needs are much more immediate, as underlined by the continuing bad behaviour of the players, the latest reminder coming this week with Delon Armitage’s suspension pending an investigation into his arrest last Saturday in a Devon nightclub.
That Armitage had been playing for the England Saxons against the Ireland Wolfhounds hours earlier, and just a few days after his country’s Elite Player Squads had met individually for interviews with Lancaster merely underlines the size of the challenge facing the caretaker.
The former Saxons head coach, Lancaster had spent his first day in camp last week in nine hours of one-to-one meetings with every one of his elite player squad and yet Armitage devalued it all just days later.
It is, though, difficult to envisage the Yorkshireman being swayed in his view that his job is “just a case of harnessing the talent and letting them go. There’s no fear of failure, I’m excited”.
“My personal philosophy is that a team should respect the opposition, respect the shirt they’re wearing and hopefully those values will shine through.
“My philosophy, what I believe in comes from coming from a working-class background and being at a club like Leeds which had to struggle through the leagues. You appreciate every day being at the top table and that feeds into your value set.”
Yet, like his peers in the France and Italy camps, Lancaster has a pragmatic streak when it comes to immediate objectives.
“It’s not just about the Six Nations, it’s about challenging South Africa in the summer,” he said.
“We’re starting out on a journey and it’s important the players enjoy each other’s company.”
Perhaps these guys have more in common than first appears.
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