Loose Pass: England excel and France’s coaching concern
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with England’s new gear, France’s coaching problem, as well as an international round-up…
High speed
It was always as possible as it has been unexpected, but England’s new-found level of physicality and speed must now be initiating a fight-or-flight response from the other four World Cup contenders (that’s New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Wales by the way).
Granted, France were dreadful – more on that shortly. And granted England seemed to have a specific tactic to which the French had no answer so a lot of the work was done early in the game. But the speed of England’s defensive line, the sustained ferocity of the opening half-hour with the ball in hand especially, and the lack of errors within that speed and ferocity all point to a team coming together very nicely at just the right time.
The upcoming clash with Wales will be fascinating in nuance. Warren Gatland has not historically been one to let a weakness go unexploited. Wales will surely go into the game having found something approximating a chink. And there’s a perfectly valid vice versa to that as well.
What those may be, we can only speculate – and this should be rugby fan chat fodder for the next eleven days – but as a rough guess we reckon Wales will go all out to get the faster start and make England chase the game, while we think England will pile on the pressure at Welsh set-pieces and breakdowns and disrupt with power this time.
The Six Nations on the line in Cardiff between the oldest of enemies in late February. It doesn’t get better than that.
Who next for France?
To say France have a problem would be both an understatement and a miscount. The problems are as numerous as they are large. But looking beyond the next few months, the greater problem might be who the French look to after the World Cup.
This is not to cast Jacques Brunel as a doomed man straight away, but he has just turned 65 and it is unlikely he will continue for another four years after his contract expires following Japan 2019. And the pressure is very much on him after a curious selection for the England match which pitted a number of players out of position and virtually presented England with a jugular to go for. It’s not as if he was labouring under a huge catalogue of injuries either; sticking two centres on the wings and a winger at full-back just smacked of someone running out of ideas.
Anyway, who could succeed him? A lot of talk has been about the influx of foreign players having detrimental effects on the quality of French players in the Top 14, but scouring the ranks of French coaches does not reveal a long list of possibles for the national team role either.
Ugo Mola, Franck Azema, Matthieu Lazerges, Xavier Garbajosa, Laurent Labit and Christophe Urios are currently the top coaches in the domestic league. Of them, you’d probably point at Azema and Mola after stints of five and four years respectively which have seen both their teams working their way back to the top of the French rugby pyramid. Mola’s rebuilding job at Toulouse in particular has been deeply laudable. Labit, and his trusted assistant Laurent Travers, have enjoyed success at all their stops together, from Montauban, through Castres and now to Racing 92.
Yet no French coach has created an obvious dynasty to compare to, say Guy Noves. Much is talked about France’s emerging generation of young players, but the critical choice over the coming 12 months will be who takes them on.
Missed anything while the Six Nations was on?
The Six Nations B was every bit as tight as predicted, although the possible bad feeling failed to erupt. Germany ran Belgium close in Brussels, with the home side triumphing 29-22, and Spain secured an unexpected 16-14 win over Russia, helped by a try that absolutely wasn’t and an inexplicable fumble by Russian winger Denis Simplikevich 10 yards from the line.
But Georgia’s win was most impressive, conquering Romania 18-9 in Bucharest with a side featuring several up and coming youngsters, including teenage fly-half Tedo Abzhandadze and 20-year-old Racing loosehead Guram Gogichashvili.
Meanwhile, there was action over the pond as well. Canada’s fall from grace continued in Brazil, where the home side produced a memorable display of scrummaging in an 18-10 win.
Argentina’s A side blew the US Eagles away 45-14, giving Eagles coach Gary Gold much to ponder, while Uruguay eased past Chile 20-5.
Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan