France face first-round exit Eddie: Innovator, motivator Rahul axed as India try Rohit as opener

THREE-TIMES runners-up France head to the World Cup knowing that defeat to Argentina in their opening game in Japan might lead to them being knocked out in the pool stage for the first time.

“Les Bleus” have been well short of their best over the past few years and lost in the quarter-finals four years ago, matching their worst performance at a World Cup.

France will also face England, Tonga and the United States in Pool C but it is their group opener against the Pumas next Saturday that is likely to determine the fate of Jacques Brunel’s side.

Defeat would leave them needing a win over England to have any chance of advancing to the quarter-final stage, but in their last 10 meetings they have beaten the English only three times.

Despite the emergence of young talents such as scrumhalf Antoine Dupont, France have been also-rans in the Six Nations, finishing fourth three times in the last five years. They were third (2017) and fifth (2016) the other two years.

With Brunel and his predecessor Guy Noves tinkering with their halfback combinations, trying out a total of 16 pairings since 2016, Dupont is one of Les Bleus’ rare hopes for the future.

The 22-year-old looks to be a certain starter against Argentina, but it is unclear whether Camille Lopez or Romain Ntamack will start at flyhalf.

The French squad is a good mix of seasoned players and youngsters, who will benefit from the experience of Louis Picamoles in his third World Cup.

The No 8 might tell tales from the 2011 World Cup, when France were routed 37-17 by New Zealand in the pool phase and scraped into the playoffs before the players rebelled against coach Marc Lievremont and went on to reach the final.

Losing 8-7 to the All Blacks in that final was a major disappointment, but achieving something similar in Japan would be quite an achievement for this team.

French federation president Bernard Laporte, however, is confident in their chances.

“Even if there are three or four superior teams, France are able, on one game, to beat anyone,” he said of Les Bleus, who are ranked eighth in the world.

“This team has found enthusiasm and a soul. The preparation has been very good. We could not be heading to Japan with a better mindset.” | ENGLAND coach Eddie Jones can be warm, charming, engaging, witty and also willing to share his immense rugby insights when it suits his purpose to do so.

The Australian can also be as stubborn as a mule and once he makes his mind up about a player, he rarely changes it – as Alex Goode, Danny Cipriani and many others routinely delivering man-of-the-match performances for their clubs but left in the international wilderness have found to their cost.

His insistence on describing replacements as “finishers” is widely mocked but Jones really does believe a match is won by 23 players rather than 15 and that some better suit the early stages and some thrive later, and he has little patience with anyone who dares question that view.

The 59-year-old Jones makes no secret of the fact that he sees the media as just another tool in his armoury to improve his team’s chances of success and is spectacularly unconcerned about criticism of his selections.

A bemused Itoje said he had to do a Google search to discover that the Viva was a particularly unremarkable 1970s small family saloon, but weeks later he was in the Six Nations starting team and has not looked back.

During the 2016 Six Nations Jones raised eyebrows – and some southern-hemisphere hacks – by suggesting Billy Vunipola could be the best No 8 in the world. It seemed fanciful at the time but, three years on, he just might be.

“As a coach one of your jobs is to give them dreams,” Jones said at the time. Vunipola added: “I respond more to the love and compassion he shows the boys, me especially. He has just filled me with confidence and that is something I thrive on. I just need someone to reassure me and look after me.”

That is not a side of Jones’ persona that the former roughhouse hooker likes to promote but, behind closed doors, he is clearly a master motivator.

That ability to inspire – alongside implementing a meticulously researched game plan – was at its most tangible when his Japan team pulled off one of the all-time rugby shocks by beating the Springboks at the 2015 World Cup.

Now he is devoting his famously exhausting work ethic to England – saying on the day he took over from Stuart Lancaster after the 2015 failure that his entire focus was on winning the 2019 tournament. | INDIA axed struggling opener KL Rahul and handed Rohit Sharma a chance to revive his stop-start Test career after selecting the limited-overs stalwart for next month’s three-match series against the Proteas.

Rahul has gone 12 Test innings without a 50-plus score and struggled in the recent tour of the West Indies where India won both the matches to top the World Test Championship table. Former captain Sourav Ganguly was among those who felt Rohit, who smashed a record five hundreds at the 50-over World Cup in England and finished as the tournament’s top scorer, should partner Mayank Agarwal at the top of the order.

“We want to give Rohit Sharma an opportunity to open the innings in Tests,” chief selector MSK Prasad said after naming the 15-member squad.

Prithvi Shaw would have been Agarwal’s automatic partner, but the 19-year-old is currently serving a doping ban. The only player in the world with three double hundreds in one-day internationals, Rohit averages nearly 40 in Tests batting in the middle order.

The 32-year-old has struggled to replicate his limited-overs heroics in the 27 Tests he has played so far and must reinvent himself as an opener in the long form as well. Punjab top-order batsman Shubman Gill got his maiden Test call-up, while the selectors opted for two wicket-keepers in Rishabh Pant and Wriddhiman Saha.

Spin all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja, who was preferred ahead of Ravichandran Ashwin in both the Tests in the West Indies, has been retained in the squad along with the off-spinner with left-armer Kuldeep Yadav as the third slow bowling option. |