THIS FRENCH TEAM AREN’T FIT AND AREN’T FOCUSED ...UNTIL THEY OPEN THEIR BOX OF TRICKS
FORMER ENGLAND AND LIONS PROP WHO ALWAYS SPEAKS HIS MIND
It wouldn’t surprise me if the France team are sitting around their hotel tonight eating a few macaroons, drinking coffee and puffing away on a packet of Marlboro lights.
whenever you play against a French team, it’s pretty common to see one of their players having a fag while they’re waiting for the bus. It amazes me that it still goes on in professional rugby, but it does.
France are nowhere near being one of the fittest teams in world rugby and England will set out to exploit that.
England, wales, Ireland and new Zealand all talk about how fit they are. there was a time when warren Gatland would say it so often that everyone believed him, but have you ever heard the French claim to be the fittest side? they don’t even pretend.
they beat us last year and it was a dark, dark day to be an England player.
they slowed the game down to their pace by throwing huge bodies into the breakdown to stop our quick ball. we had no answer to it and, having lost to Scotland the week before, it was the start of a downward spiral.
they have every trick up their sleeve to slow the game down. they’ll stop to tie up their shoe lace — the ‘KitKat’ move — walk to the lineouts at snail’s pace and reset the scrums.
You’ll probably see one of their biggest forwards lying on top of Ben Youngs.
He’ll claim he’s being sneaky and tactical by taking out the
scrum-half, but it’s probably just an excuse for a breather.
France were terrible in the second half against Wales. It’s the ultimate rugby cliche, but you never know whether they’re going to be brilliant or dull in attack, have a great set-piece or not give a damn.
You never know which France team will turn up, but I expect England to win by 20 points.
There’s only so much you can analyse Les Bleus because they don’t have much structure.
They always turn up, scream out the anthem as loud as they can and play well for the first five minutes.
But if things aren’t going well in that first five minutes, they very quickly drop their heads.
All you can do is analyse their individuals. No 8 Louis Picamoles is the best barometer of the France team.
If he’s in the game, everyone else will feed off him. If he’s not in the game, he’s very laissez- faire and it’s obvious that he doesn’t give a damn.
He can be world class one minute but he can be a completely poisonous influence on the pack if he’s not getting his way.
England will try to harass him and wind him up in the knowledge that will affect the rest of the group.
Then you’ll start to see players waving their hands in the air, gobbing off in French and bitching at each other — and England will pounce.
GRAND SILENCE!
THE words ‘Grand Slam’ will not even have been whispered in camp this week. Maybe they would have before Eddie Jones came in, but that sort of thing has been drilled out of the group. If Eddie heard a senior boy mention it in the canteen, he’d note it and collar them later in the day. If it was a young pup, he’d give them the full acid-tongue treatment!
ONE TO WATCH
BIg Courtney Lawes was absolutely scything the Irish last week. Fortunately, I’ve never been on the end of a ‘ Courtney special’. If I see him running towards me with his snarling tackle face, I’ll pass the ball to safety!
He’s a great asset to have in defence. He’s not the heaviest bloke, but he’s got a mindset of, “I’m going to end you”, and you can’t coach that.
He loves it. Ironically, he’s the most horizontal and placid bloke off the pitch.
After training he’s straight back to his room with his Netflix set up on the laptop and the Clash of
Clans game on his iPhone. He spends half of his England match fees buying digital coins!
You always know if Courtney’s in the room next door because the Wi-Fi keeps going down!