Exclusive: Louis Bielle-Biarrey’s modest admission on try-scoring exploits which helped France to defend their Six Nations title
France winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey crossed for one of his four tries against England (inset) and celebrates his country defending their Six Nations title with team-mate Matthieu Jalibert after the match in Paris.
France flyer Louis Bielle-Biarrey has opened up on the chaos, and the character which was on display from his side during their 48-46 win over England in Paris on Saturday night.
Les Bleus were made to work very hard to clinch that result which also secured them the Six Nations title for the second successive year and, in the end, that goal was achieved in dramatic fashion courtesy of a last-gasp penalty from Thomas Ramos.
The most telling moment came at half-time. A team trailing by three points and rattled by careless errors sat down and chose to believe the half they’d been playing had been good enough. The attack was working, the structure was there. The only thing between them and victory was discipline.
Bielle-Biarrey sat on the turf at the Stade de France and laughed at the absurdity of it all. “At the end, it wasn’t really rugby anymore,” he said.
What unfolded in those final minutes bore no resemblance to the game they’d sketched out in the first forty. It was survival. It was desperation. It was, somehow, exactly what France needed.
Set a new Six Nations try-scoring record
The winger has broken his own tournament record. Nine tries in a Six Nations edition is the kind of statistic that fills highlight reels and dominates the morning-after analysis.
Bielle-Biarrey cuts through the noise with the clarity of a player who understands what matters. “If I’d broken this record but we hadn’t won, it would have meant nothing,” revealed the 22-year-old.
This is not false modesty. This is a player who has watched his team win back-to-back Six Nations titles and knows that individual scoring records are the small print in a story written in championship silverware. France won the tournament twice running. That has not happened often in the history of international rugby. Everything else is detail.
Yet the detail is devastating. Forty-six points conceded against England. Fifty in Scotland. The arithmetic of a defence in crisis, masked by an attack so prolific it outpaces the damage being done at the other end.
Bielle-Biarrey acknowledged this with the honesty France will need if they are to build on this title rather than drift into complacency.
“Our attack saves us a bit. It’s a bit like the forest hiding the trees. We need to question ourselves on defence,” he admitted.
The match itself was a tutorial in the extremes of international rugby. For three rounds in the Six Nations, France had demonstrated control. They had played with the mastery that separates champions from contenders. This final game went to pieces. England brought size, experience, and a willingness to contest every ruck and every channel.
The penalty count mounted. The errors compounded. Each time France fell behind, they found a way to surge back.
That resilience is what Bielle-Biarrey kept returning to. France pushed hard, and their discipline improved. And then, with the match still in the balance and the crowd at eighty thousand strong pushing them forward, they conceded a try at the 78th minute.
Fourteen men and a restart to take the championship. No clear French plan, but just the raw need to win.
What followed was indeed remarkable – the remarkable conclusion of a remarkable Six Nations.
“We get the ball once, we lose it, we regain it, forward pass, penalty, he puts it over. It was quite mad, it wasn’t really rugby anymore. It was just trying to advance, to scrape a penalty.
‘We know it won’t always work out like that’
“There wasn’t really a game-plan anymore and it worked for us. But if we’d lost the match, it would be the same. We’re very pleased to have won but we know it won’t always work out like that.”
A knock-on. A penalty. Ramos stepping up. The ball sailing through the posts. The crowd erupting. The narrative completing itself in the most unlikely way possible.
That is the paradox sitting at the heart of this tournament. France have won it twice in succession. They have a winger scoring tries at an extraordinary rate.
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They have shown the capacity to come from behind against one of the strongest teams in the competition. They have also leaked points in alarming numbers and relied on attacking brilliance to paper over fundamental weaknesses in their game’s architecture.
For now, the titles belong to them. The records belong to Bielle-Biarrey. The memories belong to everyone who watched eighty thousand French supporters carry their team to an unlikely, improbable, thoroughly undeserved victory in the closing moments of a match that had abandoned any pretence of being rugby.
Bielle-Biarrey, who played more than 1,500 minutes this season, felt good.
“When you win, you always feel better,” he said.
He would have holidays when he got them. For now, there was only the satisfaction of a title secured and the knowledge that France’s path forward will require a hard reckoning with the defensive fragility that almost cost them everything.
