Loose Pass: France flounder, Cheika confusion and REC

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with France, power struggles in Australia and 2019 Rugby Europe Championship…

Fabulous comes from within

When France overcame a 24-10 deficit against the Jonah Lomu-inspired All Blacks in 1999, one prominent English newspaper stuck the report on its front page under the banner headline ‘Only the Fabulous French can do this!’

Two decades later and the headline is almost the same. Unfortunately, it’s the adjective that is gone. ‘Only the French can do this’ would not be a bad summation of how Wales were inexplicably given a route back into a game on Friday that no international team should ever have been given.

Warren Gatland was pretty succinct in his criticism of the French, opining that they were simply a team that has forgotten how to win. Olivier Magne went a little deeper into the problem, saying of the current generation: “…at the first hitch, they collapse psychologically. This generation has been associated with defeat for too long … they are deeply traumatised.”

Rugby history is littered with moments of fabulousness, or something like it, from the French. Twickenham’s greatest-ever try – as voted for by the Twickenham faithful – was scored by a Frenchman (Philippe Saint-Andre in 1991). France regularly play a decisive role in World Cup favourites becoming unseated. The last back-to-back Grand Slam was clinched by the French with a 51-0 drubbing of Wales.

Yet, with the exception of that back-to back Grand Slam-winning team, it’s not as if the French have ever exactly been reputed for psychological strength. Frequent fabulousness, coupled with many inexplicable moments of flop, has been the French recipe for decades. And a very palatable recipe it has been too for the neutral. Victories have come from fabulousness, not sustained psychological brilliance.

Where France seem to have gone wrong over the past 10 years or so – and clearly they have somewhere – is to perhaps deviate from that recipe a bit. Method, structure, control… all watchwords of the professional rugby world, but all antithesis to flair, passion and derring-do.

If France weren’t fabulous for the first half of Friday’s game, they were at least looking like they wanted to be. They wanted to be in the second half too, but you also got the impression that someone had insisted they shouldn’t be. Confused by the uncomfortable contrast between French spirit and professional instruction, the fabulousness turned to hesitancy and nervousness. Collapse swiftly followed.

The message from all this? Let them be. There are at least signs of many young Frenchmen in the team wanting to be fabulous again. One day it will click for 80 minutes, not 40. When it happens, it will, in a word, be fabulous.

And you think the French have problems

This column was, not long ago, behind Michael Cheika. Give him a chance, we said. There’s been enough to suggest he still has the dressing room, we said.

But we’re more and more flummoxed by Cheika’s decisions. The latest one, cutting Stephen Larkham away, is extraordinary in its timing, as well as its reasoning. Seven months out from a World Cup and Australia don’t have an attack coach anymore, apparently because of a disagreement on fundamental playing philosophy.

Moreover, it’s the end of a relationship that is four years old – a whole rugby coaching cycle – which rather begs the question: did this difference in philosophy not raise its head before? Did Cheika not interview Larkham properly? He did the head-hunting, after all.

Speculation is now mounting that Cheika will return to a tried and trusted lieutenant, with Daryl Gibson – Cheika’s assistant when the Waratahs won Super Rugby – widely being touted as the most likely man. Gibson also has Waratah-based rapport with some of Australia’s key players and with Australia’s defence coach Nathan Grey. And maybe it will work – when Australia win only four of 13 Tests in a year, something has to change.

But changing personnel like this so close to a World Cup is a desperate move. And Cheika is beginning to look as though he is creating scapegoats. In eight months’ time, we’ll know for sure.

Elsewhere in Europe

The Six Nations trio of matches will not be the only internationals across Europe this weekend. Most pertinently, the Six Nations B tournament will kick-off, featuring much potential festering feeling after the deduction of points from three of the teams last year and the extraordinary refereeing performance which saw Spain’s assault on a World Cup place derailed in Belgium.

Germany, coached now by Mike Ford but bereft of the financing that bankrolled their way up the European ladder over the past eight years, travel to the Heysel Stadium to face Belgium, who would have played a more prominent role in last year’s World Cup qualification were it not for their fielding of ineligible players.

Romania, who would have played a more prominent role in last year’s World Cup qualification were it not for their fielding of ineligible players, host Georgia, who no doubt are now in full swing of warming up for their Japan campaign. The Romanians have gone through two trainers in the past six months, losing Lyn Howells to retirement in the wake of the ineligible player scandal, and dispensing with Marc Lievremont after two months. Marius Tincu now holds the tiller of a ship in stormy seas (Tincu is hardly the type to bring calm to a situation), with a number of players hugely critical of the union’s acts in buying in project players from overseas (acts which led directly to the ineligible player fiasco last year).

Russia, who were the chief beneficiaries of the ineligible player problems and sit in Pool A with Ireland and Scotland, travel to Spain, who would have been in that group had it not been for their fielding of ineligible players.

Spain’s great mark from last year was not just the ineligible player problem. It will be hard to forget the hounding of Romanian referee Vlad Iordachescu by Spain’s players after the latter appeared to squash their hopes of direct qualification by masterminding Belgium’s 18-10 win, all of which was rendered academic when it was found that they had also broken player registration regulations.

There’s a lot of history in the Six Nations B at the moment – it’ll be interesting to see how the new-look teams shape up.

Loose pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan