St Andre: We have no chance at Twickenham
FRANCE’S brittle confidence makes it almost impossible for them to storm England’s citadel and claim a first win at Twickenham in 12 years, says Les Bleus legend Philippe St Andre.
Wales may have “forgotten how to lose” – as their boss Warren Gatland claimed after winning in Paris on Friday. However, the polar opposite applies to a French team that has dismally lost 22 of their 33 matches since the 2015 World Cup, winning just ten and drawing once.
France’s recent roll of dishonour includes tying with Japan and losing to Fiji for the first time – both on home soil – and, having lost 13 of their last 15 away games, St Andre believes they are in no position to reverse a run of six successive defeats to England in London next Sunday. St Andre told The Rugby
Paper: “It’s a long time since 2007 – 12 years – and for the last ten or 11 years French rugby has been struggling. We are ninth in the world, we lost to Fiji in November for the first time and now we have lost to Wales in a bad way, so confidence is very low.
“Rugby is a lot about confidence so I think against England it is nearly an impossible game. If we’d beaten Wales you might think ‘why not?’, but we were not the favourites against Wales at home and we are certainly not the favourites to beat England at Twickenham now.”
St Andre added: “I loved playing at Twickenham – it’s a great atmosphere, the pitch is fantastic and as a Frenchman this is a game you really want to play in – but we have no confidence or momentum and the last few years have been painful.
“England were struggling last year after the Lions tour and with injuries, but they played good rugby in November and Owen Farrell played his best rugby. Henry Slade is getting better and better, Manu Tuilagi is back and their pack of forwards is very strong.
“They managed to beat Australia and South Africa in November and nearly beat New Zealand as well, so their depth is strong and they showed how competitive they are.
“It is important for the French team to put in a good performance at Twickenham because at the World Cup we are in the same Pool. We need to front up and show we are still a dangerous team, but unfortunately we have a generation of players that is used to losing.”
St Andre believes new rules around the inclusion of home-grown players in Top 14 matches will pay long-term dividends.
“We have made progress there,” he added. “We had ten years of having too many overseas players and not looking after our top players, but now teams must field between 15 and 17 home-grown players in squads.
“Our young players have not had any game time, but now you see guys like Romain Ntamack and Demba Bamba coming through and last year we won the U20s World Cup by beating England in the final. We are finally making the right decisions and we will see the benefit in the next two or three years.