France: Gregory Alldritt and Jonathan Danty carry burden of expectation
“It’s complicated,” replied France flanker Gregory Alldritt when asked about the challenge of facing England with a Grand Slam to be won.
On form alone, France ought to win. But they’ve had precious little success against England in recent years, with only three wins in the last seven years, encompassing ten clashes.
Hell of a match
Scintillating form at times this season has given way to a more pragmatic strategy during this Six Nations, with an excellent kicking game and gnarly pack underpinning the occasional stardust from the much-vaunted backs.
But on last weekend’s showing, England, despite defeat against Ireland, have just the kind of disruptive, hot-headed physicality that can throw the French off their stride.
“They made a hell of a match against Ireland with one less player,” continued Alldritt.
“We see that this is a team that has character, a big scrum, a big pack.
“The Crunch is always a complicated match, there is a special context around this match. We know it won’t be easy.
“The motivation for them is obvious. We know that they will come without a chance of winning the tournament, certainly, but if we turned the situation around, we would be the first to want to deprive them of Grand Slam at Twickenham.”
Centre Jonathan Danty also warned against letting the burden of expectation confound the newly-found French mental edge that has carried them through a couple of tight games this championship, not least last week’s narrow win against Wales.
“We wanted to be able to treat this last game as a final, we succeeded,” he said to Midi-Olympique.
“Until then, everyone was talking to us about Grand Slams, it was not our goal. We wanted to proceed in steps. And the next step is to win the Tournament, which we do by beating England.
“Frankly, whoever the opponent was, we would have to be in the same state of mind. We can’t imagine losing so close to the goal. So we’re going to focus on winning without thinking too much about its consequences and then we can enjoy it.
“We must feed on this context, this expectation, the pleasure that this French team provides to people.
“I knew the French team that was mostly criticized, that lost its matches, that did not wow the spectators and that played many of its matches in stadiums that did not fill up.
“The difference, I can tell you that I feel it well. And all the players feel it. Inevitably, all this will give us strength. It’s fun, I am having so much fun on this adventure. I have no idea where I will be in one, two, three years, but today… how cool! Really!”