Beattie: Facing Galthie's total war 'was and is my worst nightmare'
For much of the past decade, some France players I count as good friends have treated international duty as a poisoned chalice. I’ve seen guys leaving their clubs for Marcoussis with a sheepish air about them, proud to represent their country but knowing the level of coaching, organisation and ultimately, results, were all below par. And if the players were mired in such apathy, imagine how the rugby-daft fans felt. The FFR routinely struggled to sell out Stade de France and since they don’t actually own the stadium, could end up losing money if the attendance didn’t rise beyond 65,000.
But boy, are France back. And how the mood of the nation has swung. The side many of us grew up watching – laden with panache, flair and x-factor – has returned, and with it, their bond with the public. Marketing folk talk about ‘selling the sizzle’ rather than the sausage itself, and while the sizzle on Saturday with pyrotechnics, deafening noise and anticipation was phenomenal, the sausage was juicier still.
When little Gabin Villiere stood up to collect his match jersey during the week, he made a vow: ‘this game is going to be complete warfare and I will epitomise that’. He promised his team-mates he would be the snarling, relentless embodiment of conflict. He fairly delivered. This is a man who was rejected by Rouen as a ProD2 scrum-half and has reinvented himself as one of the most lethal wingers in the world. At Rouen, he was told, ‘you’re a scrum-half who can’t pass, catch or kick, your ankles click together when you run, you’re not a natural athlete and you’re never going to make it’. Here he is, leading a raid, waging war in a Test match, against what was seen as the most mobile, dynamic pack in the world.
France pressured Ireland incessantly, robbed them of any time and space, and made them look very, very ponderous, like rabbits in headlights. Villiere led that defensive effort.
How do they put the Shaun Edwards blitz into practice? With the enormous athletes at his disposal, Fabien has his real heavyweights on the front foot and tells them not to worry about what happens outside them. Uini Atonio, Cyrille Baille, Paul Willemse and Julien Marchand are instructed to run at the outside shoulder of the attacker opposite them, and absolutely obliterate him. One job; that’s it. You are a defensive javelin – go and skewer someone. Nobody is stepping back against the grain because you have inside blitzers.
You ask a pack of France’s size and power to do that, and they dominate 80 per cent of the collisions. That’s where Ireland knocked the ball on and made mistakes. It happened to Italy, and it happened to New Zealand in the autumn. The extraordinary were made to look very, very ordinary.
That was the forwards effort, but the backline was blitzing off first-phase launch plays too, which you just do not see nowadays. It’s almost unheard of. They didn’t care who was in the tramlines or on the edges. They leave the wingers – basically forgetting they exist.
When you cut a player down behind the gain line, Villiere and Gael Fickou have time to contest, on the front foot, and turn over the ball. If they don’t succeed in stealing it, the opposition have a ruck that takes an interminable period of time to win and recycle, behind the gain line. Their forwards are asked to run backwards from the line-out and then go forwards again, all the while knowing they’ve got Marchand, Baille and Willemse ready to smash you again.
Having defended with this system under Fabien at Montpelier, it’s a dream. It’s exhilarating. He loves it because of how spectacularly it can reduce fabulous players to mistake-riven wrecks. You beat up your opposition physically and you make small mental gains every second or third phase. Having played against it as a forward, it was and is my worst nightmare. You have no time to think about footwork or a pass, you’re essentially dodging bullets – but the bullets are the size of Paul Willemse.
Ireland had been so comfortable in possession against Wales, but in Paris, errors spilled out of them like sweets from a pinata. They only half-broke France with their crafty wrap plays and multi-phase options three or four times. World-class players were hesitant and dumped on the deck. And the thing is, most don’t play against the blitz these days. Some coaches haven’t coached against it in a long time. Ireland’s ability to problem-solve live on the field deserted them.
France kicked a lot of ball, essentially throwing down a gauntlet: ‘Ireland, you’re meant to be the best ball-carriers, best attackers, best at multi-phase, best at tipping the ball on, best handling forwards in the world, what can you do?’ They battered them. And when they had their chances, they took them. They were dominant in pretty much every set of phases.
Undoing this immensely aggressive defence is, to say the least, challenging. To stand a chance of beating the blitz, you have to make the big boppers run. You cross-kick to the 15m channels and you make loads of low tracer kicks. When Villiere is racing up, he can’t get back to cover them. You have to refuse the collisions, chip kick to slow the French line speed and keep them guessing. You want the defence turning over and over, so you are basically making the heaviest men on the field do shuttle runs.
When you have a ruck near the touchline, it’s really easy for France to blitz. If you can work your way into the centre of the field, even if it’s not a dominant carry, you force them to blitz both sides of the field, which is much harder.
And if you are going to keep ball in hand, you need multi-phase options with depth and deception. You have to lure Villiere in towards your 12 and 13, catch and pass and get the ball to a 15m channel loaded with attackers. But in the Six Nations, the width from collision to collision plummets. Teams must shift France into the middle of the pitch, and then move then away very quickly, but that is desperately tough to execute. One mistake, and you’re toast.
For all of France’s dominance, though, there were two or three little moments where their systems fell apart, be that Mack Hansen’s try from a restart or Jamison Gibson-Park sneaking in after Willemse made a bad decision to drift out instead of step in. There are chinks in their armour, but they are now the overwhelming title favourites.
Their difficulty will come when people pick apart the blitz with smart coaching, excellent decision-makers and very high rugby IQ on the field. I don’t see anyone trying to run through and around them. They will refuse that fight, go to the air, and try and force France to play from deep under a kicking bombardment. That may seem negative to the viewer at home, but it is potentially the only way to unlock their defence. So far, nobody has managed it.
Ireland and New Zealand could not handle this French team. The question is, when France are this well organised, this fired up, and this well supported, who can?
Comments on RugbyPass
Will rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
2 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
2 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
2 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
1 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
2 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to commentsThis disgraceful episode must result in management and coach team sackings. A new manager with worse results than previous and the coaching staff need to coached. Awful massacre led by donkeys.
1 Go to commentsInteresting article with one glaring mistake. This sentence: “And between the top four nations right now, Ireland, France, South Africa, and New Zealand…” should read: And between the top four nations right now, South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand and France…”. Get it right wistful thinkers, its not that hard.
24 Go to commentsHow did Penny get the gig anyway?
3 Go to commentsNice write up Nick and I would have agreed a week ago. However as you would know Cale & co got absolutely monstered by the Blues back row of Sotutu, Ioane and Papaliti and not all of these 3 are guaranteed a start in the Black jumper. He may need to put some kgs before stepping up, Spring tour? After the week end Joe will be a bit more restless. Will need to pick a mobile tough pack for Wales and hope England does the right thing and bashes the ABs. I like your last paragraph but I would bring Swinton, Hannigan into the 6 role and Bobby V to 8
28 Go to commentsThe Crusaders can still get in to the Play Off’s. The imminent return of outstanding captain Scott Barrett and his All Black team mate Codie Taylor will be a big boost.There are others like Tamaiti Williams too. Two home games coming up. Fellow Crusader fans get there and support these guys. I will be.
2 Go to commentsCant get more Wellington than Proctor.
3 Go to comments