‘You never know which France will turn up’ now rots on cliché scrapheap

Fabien Galthie says Les Bleus' target for the 2023 tournament is “is to repeat what we managed to do last year”.

VA-VA-VOOM: France head coach Fabien Galthie. Picture: John Walton/PA Wire.

France aren't worried that the 2023 Six Nations calendar does not favour them.

Despite injuries to several executive players, confidence at the pre-tournament Capreton training camp is as high as you’d expect from the reigning champions and 2022 Grand Slammers. They have depth to rely on.

Team targets haven’t changed since, shortly after taking over as head coach, Fabien Galthie told then-sceptical journalists the goal on his watch was, ‘to win matches and win titles’.

He has recited variations on that mantra numerous times since, most recently at the media launch for this year’s tournament in London. “We laid down the fundamentals with a clear vision,” he said, “win matches very quickly, win titles and become a major nation in world rugby”. He added: “We managed to do that in three years and 30 games.” 

In the blast of a tournament launch, that quiet end-of-mission phase statement was easy to miss. Thirty games - 31, in fact - into Galthie’s now-extended tenure, he regards his rebuild of France as a genuine rugby force as complete, while the hoary ‘you never know which France will turn up’ line rots on a cliche scrapheap somewhere.

What he didn’t say is what happens now. The end of one mission phase leads inevitably to the beginning of the next. Spoiler: the French game is evolving.

In a recent interview with Rugbyrama, Galthie was unequivocal about his ambition for this Six Nations. A second title, after a Grand Slam and two second-place finishes would be a very acceptable return this year, given the fixture list and strength of the opposition. But Galthie said France’s target for the 2023 tournament, “is to repeat what we managed to do last year”.

Put that into perspective: no side in the 24 tournaments of the Six Nations era has pulled off back-to-back Grand Slams. France are the last to have done a Slam double, in 1997 and 1998.

That doesn’t matter to Galthie. Never mind that his squad travel to Rome, Dublin and London. Nevermind that they have lost their last two at Twickenham by three points; or that the 2021 victory that broke a decade-long winless streak in Dublin was in an echoingly empty Aviva, when this time it will be packed. France’s stall is set in unambiguous terms.

There’s reason for his optimism. France went unbeaten in 2022. After their Grand Slam, he led a much-changed squad to two Test victories in Japan, before orchestrating a November clean sweep against Australia, South Africa, and Japan again.

France’s winning streak is now 13 matches, and they have won 25 of 31 since February 2020.

No one, however, can deny that Australia and South Africa could - possibly should - have won those matches in Paris and Marseille, while the win over Japan in Toulouse was laboured.

Cue arguments that rivals had worked out a way to beat the French. The basis of France’s game has never been secret. Galthie has spoken often of the game of ‘dispossession’ - kicking for territorial and positional advantage, and only playing with the ball in ‘the right areas’.

In November, Australia kept three in the backfield, to counter France’s long game and fought dispossession with dispossession; while South Africa almost outmuscled Les Bleus up front, but kicked to the corners rather than take them on in midfield. Both sides were minutes from victory.

France had finally started winning games they could have lost, rather than losing games they could have won - but it began to look like they had been rumbled.

And yet. As chasing teams adapt, target teams - and France are a target team again - evolve. Galthie no longer focuses on dispossession, but on repossession. Sometimes, in interviews, he links the two in a multiphase dispossession-repossession riff.

That should scare opponents, who may have thought that’s what they were already doing. It shifts Les Bleus’ game into renewed intelligent counter-attack territory. French flair, smartly delivered, clinically executed.

You may believe they’re reasonably efficient at it already - and cite Paul Willemse’s try against Scotland, started by Antoine Dupont deciding to have a run deep in the French half, or the time Les Bleus Ntamacked the All Blacks at Stade de France. Now, imagine them doing it better and more often. Imagine them successfully exploiting perhaps four or five situations a match, rather than one or two. Then do the maths.

La Rochelle coach Ronan O’Gara, talking about what France have done so far, hinted at a possible future in a recent interview. He said: “France seem to go away a lot from their capacity to strike from anywhere. It’s fascinating how a lot of the data suggests if you kick the ball more and longer you’ve a far greater chance of winning,” he said.

“In certain games [Damian] Penaud wanted to attack but you could see him thinking of what he was told in the week: ‘You’ve got to kick’.

“Of course you have to respect the support [staff] and listen to what the data is telling you. But I know there are certain scenarios where the French could just put the foot down and play.” 

After O’Gara had given his interview, L’Equipe published one with France attack coach Laurent Labit in which he discussed that very topic, with reference to the Autumn Tests.

Labit said the staff had ‘decided to reduce the sails’ in November. “We thought about giving the players options, but knowing they have so much in them, we were afraid they would try things too early,” he said. “So … we decided to tighten-up the game.” 

Then he said: “Afterwards, we showed them the favourable situations they did not seize.” 

It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. France are working to spot more ‘favourable situations’ earlier, and exploit them harder.

That’s what the coaches have been plotting since long before November. It’s sometimes lazily termed ‘heads-up rugby’, with easy and unexplained follow-up references to sides ‘playing what’s in front of them’. In truth, it’s much easier to write than to do. And it’s what France are teaching themselves.

In early pre-tournament training sessions at Capbreton, Thomas Ramos wore the 15 tabard. His selection would fit a more attack-minded game with evolved kicking tactics beyond even the current standard of establishing territorial and positional advantage. But then, so would Melvyn Jaminet’s.

In Dupont and Ntamack and Ramos, Jalibert and Jaminet, they have players with the smarts to get to grips with the evolution. In Alldritt and Ollivon, Willemse, Atonio, Baille and Marchand, they have the platform for them to do it.

We know that 2020, when Galthie and his staff challenged a new band of young players to watch out for the changes and try to keep up, was a revolution in French rugby What’s happening now may be a revolution without the R, but we’re at a gestalt shift as the French game evolves and the picture in front of us suddenly changes. We won’t necessarily see it immediately, but when we do, it’s likely to be something special.