Jacques Brunel set to show his hand regarding Louis Picamoles
France boss Jacques Brunel will signal the start of his countdown to the World Cup on Wednesday. He will select a squad of 31 to prepare for a three-match series of November Tests and few people around these parts envy him the job.
That is because there is genuine fear in France that their team are no longer capable of competing with major nations at home or abroad.
And that the hope of an authentic World Cup challenge in which they are scheduled to face England in the first round in Japan next year remains no more than a mirage.
France are in such dispiriting decline they are deeply entrenched in the worst sequence of results in the long and proud history of their game.
They have won just two of their last 14 encounters and there is little optimism around of that record being improved by a clash with South Africa on November 10. Nor even by another with Argentina a week later.
The contentious gamble by Federation president Bernard Laporte of sacking national team boss Guy Noves and replacing him with Brunel has been a total flop so far.
Brunel, who will step down after the World Cup, has made it clear that places for these imminent games and the next Six Nations will be increasingly hard to find for those uninjured players whom he does not select this week.
Which brings full focus on the curious case of Louis Picamoles, the star forward who quit Northampton with two years still to run on his contract in order to strengthen his chances of playing in the World Cup.
France have serious problems with the positions of No.8 and fly-half as they seek desperately to re-emerge as legitimate contenders for honours.
Picamoles, who has become a trusted leader in the first of those roles with Montpellier, should walk into the squad on merit. But for the fact Brunel has chosen to “punish” him for making a shoulder operation in summer a higher personal priority than a tour of New Zealand.
In fact, he said at the time: “As long as Picamoles is not showing me he is really determined to go to the World Cup, I will not be putting his name on my lists.”
The issue is further clouded by an earlier suspension for Picamoles and others blamed for a late-night breach of discipline after a Six Nations match against Scotland in Edinburgh.
The suspicion lingers that Picamoles resented being lumped together with perpetrators of an alleged incident that had police removing those present from the plane home.
A conversation he had then with Brunel seems to have satisfied neither party. Picamoles was not included among 39 players called up for training in August.
The pair spoke again when Brunel visited Montpellier during September, the month he devoted to calling in on all Top 14 clubs.
Picamoles, capped 69 times at 32, said: “We have let this story get out of hand. Contrary to what people are saying, there are no tensions between Jacques Brunel and myself.
“We did not fight or fall out and he respects my decision. You mustn’t always look on the dark side.
“I am not saying we call each other every day, but we did have another discussion and I think there is no particular worry on my side or his.”
That will become clear when Brunel reveals the squad to prepare for the Autumn Tests at the Federation HQ of Marcoussis.
Brunel risks a national outcry if he persists in his attitude towards Picamoles to the clear detriment of his country’s ambitions. Even if, given the recent form, certainly, of South Africa and, probably, Argentina, they stretch little beyond beating Fiji in the third Test on November 24.
There is, however, a strong current of thought which argues for the inclusion of several members of the France team that won the U20 World Championship this year. And that would mean the selection of young back rowers like Jordan Joseph, of Racing, or Loic Godener, of Grenoble.
The same theory applies to fly-half where Mathieu Belleau, of Toulon, and newly-fit Camille Lopez, of Clermont, appear to have too little competition.
Starlets such as Louis Carbonel, Belleau’s club-mate, and Romain Ntamack, of Toulouse, may be ready to give them some. If not now, then during the Six Nations.
At least these are the musings of a rugby country too close to implosion for comfort and open to any potentially credible hand that is offered.
So where does the problem lie? According to TV consultant and exFrance international Thomas Lombard, the one-time Stade Francais and Worcester winger, the answer is the Top 14.
He says: “It’s like training for a 200 metres race when you face a 400 at the weekend. The French are just as good technically as the rest.
“Only they are not capable of producing that for a whole high-intensity match in areas of extreme fatigue.
“Effective game time in the Top 14 is around 28-30 minutes whereas it is 38, even 40 in the English championship.”
Brunel says he still considers France among the World Cup favourites and aspires to matching his football counterparts in their global conquest.
Some hope, you might be tempted to say. Sacre Bleu!
“We did not fight or fall out and he respects my decision. You mustn’t always look on the dark side” - Louis Picamoles