England preparing brutal lessons as France opt for youth
Eddie Jones promised to introduce France’s bright young things to the unforgiving reality of test rugby by unleashing England’s “brutal physicality” at the Stade de France on Monday.
Fabien Galthie, the new France head coach, has put his faith in youth in an initial Six Nations squad featuring 19 uncapped players, many of whom have been drawn from the French sides that have won the past two World Under-20 Championships.
Established internationals such as Yoann Huget, Maxime Medard and Camille Lopez have all been dropped since the World Cup. In their place, Galthie is expected to start first-five Romain Ntamack, 20, and tighthead prop Demba Bamba, 21.
Jones, the England head coach, believes Galthie is playing a dangerous game by leaving out so much experience and warned that the young guns would find a significant step up from playing domestic to international rugby.
“It’s a young French team that’s won the Under-20s and is building towards the World Cup in 2023,” Jones said. “There are a couple of ways you can go in that regard. When I took over the team in 2016, I kept experienced players and brought young players in. Test rugby requires experience and France have decided not to take experience in, they’ve gone with youth. And they might be wrong, they might be right.
“We don’t know but it is going to test those young players because they will never have played against a brutal physicality and intensity that we are going to play with [on Monday]. It is not domestic rugby. You don’t get that in domestic rugby. That is why you call it test rugby. You don’t get that in under-20s competitions. So, at stages, they are going to be looking at each other wanting to know where the answers are going to come from. There are not too many of them who have experienced that before. They don’t have the experienced players to call on to say ‘what do you do?’”
Jones has never shied away from targeting individual players. In his first Six Nations in charge, he brought up Ireland first-five Johnny Sexton’s concussion history, while he also questioned Wales five-eighth Rhys Patchell’s “bottle” two years ago.
England, meanwhile, are undergoing evolution rather than revolution, with seven uncapped players in a 34-man squad as they prepare for their first match since losing the World Cup final 32-12 to South Africa.
Jones is conscious the past four beaten finalists failed to make it past the quarter-finals at the following tournament, which is part of the reason he has been promoting the message that he wants to make England “the greatest team the game has ever seen”.
“You look at all the World Cup finalists and they’ve generally deteriorated over the next four years and they’ve all finished the next World Cup in the quarter-finals,” Jones said. “They’ve gone from a top-two team to a top-eight team in four years. Why? I think there are a number of issues.
“The expectation gets higher and the team doesn’t cope with that. Because they made the final, they think they are going okay, whereas every other team that hasn’t made the final is forensic in looking at where they can improve. Look at New Zealand, they turned the whole rugby system in New Zealand upside down and they were forensic in searching for answers. And players might become comfortable. These are all things we are starting to address because we want to create some new history.
“It is difficult to stay at the top. You have to have this relentless desire to be better, this relentless curiosity to find out what you can do better. And you have to have competition for places to keep players on their toes.”
Of the uncapped contingent, Jones namechecked Bath prop Will Stuart and Worcester flanker Ted Hill as impressive performers in training. However, given that Jones admitted he had already made his selection, he is likely to be keeping changes to a minimum.
He also suggested he knew what the France XV would be, but made clear that he still respected the challenge they posed.
“There are various networks around and information you can get that everyone has access to on their side and on our side, so we have got a pretty good idea who they are going to play,” Jones said. “They’re a team that relies on emotion. They want to play like the old French teams and they’re able to do that when they break the game up. So if they can offload out of the tackle, they get a poor kick or there’s a turnover at the breakdown, they then become that French team that everyone loves. They play the ball out of the tackle and suddenly everyone is racing; they’re racing.”