Galthie can't explain French inconsistency

French skipper Fabien Galthie is convinced Les Blues will show their true colours against Scotland on Saturday.

The veteran scrum-half leads his team into battle at Telstra Stadium knowing victory will ensure top spot in Pool B and a Melbourne quarter-final against either Ireland or Argentina.

But Galthie acknowledges that in order to achieve that aim, his unpredictable side must not suffer the kind of flat period which briefly allowed Japan to close to within a point of them in Townsville last Saturday.

“I don’t know why it happens,” admitted the 34-year-old, who is in his fourth World Cup campaign.

“We try to do our best all the time but sometimes we play well and at other times we have problems.

“It is not just us. There are many unpredictable teams in the competition. We hope to be strong and play well in each match.

“We certainly have the capacity to play very well but sometimes we don’t reach that level.”

Past history suggests France will perform to the standard Galthie demands. Scotland’s only victory over Saturday’s opponents in their last seven meetings was the memorable 36-22 triumph in Paris five years ago which helped secure them the final Five Nations title.

France romped to a record 36-3 win when the sides last met in February and also have a win and a draw to their credit in two previous World Cup clashes.

Galthie also has the extra motivation of wanting to end his international career with a World Cup winners’ medal.

The Stade Francais half-back came close four years ago when the French side failed to follow up their amazing semi-final win over the All Blacks with a similar performance against Australia in the decider.

That loss hurt badly and Galthie is eager to make amends.

“The World Cup has become the most important tournament in rugby,” he said.

“Every time you compete in one, you think about what it would mean to win it.

“The defeat in Cardiff hurt badly because it was probably the biggest game of my career and as a team we didn’t perform as we had hoped.

“The feeling of disappointment takes a long time to disappear.”

Galthie finds it difficult to assess how far France has moved forward in the past four years but he concedes giant strides have been made in one notoriously flaky part of the psyche – discipline.

“When Bernard Laporte became coach, we had a good long look at what we could do to improve the team,” he said.

“The problem with discipline was the one which stood out the most. If we were to compete regularly with the other major nations, we knew we had to stop giving away penalties and having men sent to the sin-bin.

“You could say the same about any team I guess but it applied to us more than the others.

“Thankfully Bernard has done something about it and we are seeing the benefit of that now.”