VINTAGE CLASS
This French team is as good as any we have seen in Six Nations era
THERE are many reasons for Ireland to be fearful in Marseille tonight. On paper, Ireland look strong, if they are judged by what they produced last year (right up until their latest World Cup quarter-final ejection). It’s a big ‘if’.
The truth is there are too many question marks for comfort. Is the Irish scrum capable of standing up to the French onslaught? They need Tadhg Furlong to get back to where he was before the 2021 Lions tour.
How will the Irish lineout cope minus the height and nous of James Ryan? Joe McCarthy has many qualities but a gazelle-like leap is not among them and there will be a lot of responsibility on captain Peter O’Mahony and Ryan Baird on the bench.
Can Jack Crowley cope with the intensity of Marseille and the pressure that goes with attempting to fill the gaping void left by Johnny Sexton? There is a whiff of Ireland’s first Six Nations outing in 2000 about this one, when Ronan O’Gara was lucky to miss the Twickenham mauling before launching his remarkable career at home against Scotland the next day out.
Did Bundee Aki peak at the World Cup? The Connacht veteran is nearly 34 now and teams will have been poring over the footage of his remarkable outings in France a few months ago.
Can Ireland cope out wide? James Lowe and Calvin Nash both carry attacking potency but they will be targeted in defence.
But the main cause of trepidation tonight is the overall quality of the home team.
It may not have gone to plan for Fabien Galthié and his team a few months ago but this is still a young and gifted team and they are ready to channel all their World Cup angst and anger into a massive performance this evening.
Marseille is a soccer town but far closer to rugby country than Paris and the grassroots will be out in force tonight. France will want to put on a real show.
So, how good is Galthié’s team?
Well, in the entire history of French rugby, there are nonnegotiables such as Serge Blanco, Philippe Sella, Pascal Ondarts and Jean-Pierre Rives who merit inclusion on any GOAT France side.
But, in the Six Nations era, this French side is as good as we have seen.
The only side that would run them close is the Bernard Laporte outfit that landed Grand Slams in 2002 and 2004 with world-class talents Yannick Jauzion, Vincent Clerc, Dimitri Yachvilli, Fabien Pelous and Imanol Harinordoquy.
Another factor in these two sides being ahead of anything else France produced over the last 23 years is how poor their national side were through most of the 2010s.
They did not win a single Six Nations title between 2010 and the Grand Slam in 2022 and even picked up a wooden spoon in 2013.
There was plenty of talent available, the likes of Mathieu Bastareaud, Yannick Nyanga and Louis Picamoles to name a few, but precious little in the way of discipline, panache or purpose and the results proved it.
For an operation with their resources and heritage that was a scandalous period in France’s rugby history that lasted until the conclusion of the 2019 World Cup.
That 2002-04 team was a different beast. That was a traditional French side in that they matched ferocious power with flair but were prone to lapses of concentration, mainly through boredom when they were too far ahead to be caught (Eddie O’Sullivan’s Ireland used this on a couple of occasions to ‘win the second half’ and save some face after first-half humiliations).
They were also somewhat slow to the party in terms of defensive organisation and set-piece surety — it was not uncommon to see hookers such as Raphael Ibanez using the old amateur era, onehanded spoon throw well into the 2000s — when the rest of the rugby planet had moved on to the two-handed spiral.
This is where the current side have the edge.
Galthié’s outfit is packed with the traditional cocktail of flair and power but, with the input of the likes of defence coach Shaun Edwards and forwards coach William Servat, they are now highly organised in areas of the game that used to irritate and bore them.
Ireland will run out tonight against a side with few obvious weaknesses — the biggest one being who is not available rather than any doubts about who is.
Antoine Dupont is a generational talent, who already has claim on being the best scrumhalf the game has seen, and his absence on Sevens duty is a major blow to the French — as is the unavailability of his half-back partner Romain Ntamack.
But France have the talent to cope and Maxime Lucu and Matthieu Jalibert are a sharp unit. There is also reason to question the selection of the burly but limited Paul Gabrillagues over the remarkable Cameron Woki in the second row.
The current trend is to pack as much meat into the front five as possible — hence the rapid elevation of McCarthy to the Ireland engine room — and that means Woki is either picked in the back row, or relegated to the bench.
It is the same situation that confronts Baird and Thomas Ahern in Ireland but, before long, the penny will drop again that there is room for the rangy, athletic second row and Woki will be back in business.
He is one of the talents that would make it onto a selection of the greatest France side of the Six Nations, together with a clutch of this teammates from tonight’s squad and, of course, the absent genius that is Dupont.
The rest are from the 2002-04 vintage, with some such as Clement Poitrenaud, Damien Traille and Yachvilli extremely unlucky to miss out.
It is a dauntingly good selection and one that emphasises the size of task facing Ireland in Marseille. It could be a very long night.
BEST FRANCE TEAM OF THE SIX NATIONS ERA: 15 Thomas Ramos; 14 Damian Penaud, 13 Gael Fickou, 12 Yannick Jauzion, 11 Vincent Clerc; 10 Romain Ntamack, 9 Antoine Dupont; 1 Christian Califano, 2 Raphael Ibanez, 3 Uini Atonio; 4 Fabien Pelous, 5 Cameron Woki; 6 Imanol Harinordoquy, 7 Olivier Magne, 8 Gregory Alldritt.
“Ireland face a side with few obvious weaknesses”