Faltering France: We won’t get too cocky
FRANCE are desperate not to fall into the traps of their past by entering their England game ‘too cocky’ after an unbeaten but unconvincing start to their World Cup. Les Bleus stumbled past the USA — just about saving face with three second-half tries from Gael Fickou, Baptiste Serin and Jefferson Poirot. But despite exciting early scores from Yoann Huget and Alivereti Raka — assisted twice by clever kicks from fly-half Camille Lopez — they lacked precision. After sealing a bonus-point win they are one behind England in Pool C and play Tonga next on Sunday before ‘Le Crunch’ with the English to finish the group. And France insist they will be ready to shock Eddie Jones’ men. ‘The next game is a really important one, so we don’t want to get too cocky and confident,’ said man of the match Bernard Le Roux. ‘It wasn’t our best performance — we lacked in a lot of areas, so we will keep on working. We want to go all the way. England is a big one for us. We have three games in 10 days which is really tough. We are well prepared, up for the challenge, and want to win the Pool. No team has ever won the World Cup and lost in the pool stage, so hopefully we can get to four wins. If we do hopefully we can go all the way. ‘England is always a tough one. We are looking forward to it but really need the points against Tonga first. France v England is always a massive thing. We had a lot of negatives against the US, so there is a lot of work to do.’ Captain Guilhem Guirado added: ‘We need to stay focused. Before England we have Tonga. We are very confident for that... and then afterwards we have the final against England. ‘There were a lot of knockons and forward passes. ‘There were too many penalties too. The USA played well. We need to improve our discipline. I hope we’ll get better.’ France made 13 handling errors and conceded 10 penalties but US coach Gary Gold said: ‘When France fire, any team in the world can be in trouble.’