France coach claims they need 'more playing time to gel' after Italy win

Job one done. The first item – beat Italy – can be ticked off on the French coaches’ Great and Secret Women’s Rugby World Cup List.

Winning match one was the prime directive of the pool phase for France. Six Nations rivals Italy, ranked sixth in the world, were Les Bleues’ most difficult Pool D opponents on paper.

France’s next outing, on Sunday, 31st August, is against Brazil, ranked 25th in the world. A week later, they face fast-improving and physical South Africa, currently 12th in the standings, who beat Brazil 66-6 in their opening outing.

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A first-up tournament win is always important for morale. For self-proclaimed Rugby World Cup ‘outsiders’ France, plotting their route through to the later stages, it was vital.

Tournament history weighs heavily on the French. They have reached the semi-finals eight times in nine previous tournaments, finishing third on seven occasions. But have never made it to the big show. Sure, they’ve come close – they were one late penalty miss away from the final in New Zealand last time out. But close isn’t enough.

The win in Exeter makes it more likely France will top Pool D, and face the second-placed side in Pool C in the quarter-finals. That’s most likely to be Ireland, unless Aoife Wafer and her team-mates shock New Zealand in Brighton on 7th September. Whoever wins that, barring a rugby universe-shattering shock, earns a semi-final against England.

That’s the maths of it for France. Behind it, one truth cuts deeper still. Les Bleues have not won a title of any kind since the Six Nations Grand Slam of 2018. That hurts. As tighthead prop Assia Khalfaoui highlighted in the lead-up to Saturday’s match: “We need to win … if we want to make history, we have to win titles.”

No one in the France camp is about to pretend that win means Les Bleues are suddenly a complete World Cup-challenging article. There’s too much still to do, too much scaffolding surrounding the squad for that.

The 24-0 scoreline demonstrated their defence – too easily smashed and sliced open by England on 9th August in Mont-de-Marsan – had been solidified over the past couple of weeks. And their scrum had built in added potency. But this was far from a title-winning statement. Defence is only half the story. France’s febrile attack was wasteful and nervy and impatient.

The post-match comments of player-of-the-match Gabrielle Vernier, after an impressive personal return to action in midfield alongside co-captain Marine Ménager, were honest and telling. “There are quite a few things to work on,” she said. “Offensively, we had a difficult time against an Italian defence that closed down the outside and put a lot of pressure on our cells. We didn’t find the key.

“The first matches [of a tournament] are always complicated to manage, emotionally. We have worked very hard for two months for this so there is that little extra something. Now we are in competition and we have to move on to the next stage to build our World Cup as we go along.”

Midfield partner and France co-captain Marine Ménager concurred, telling journalists in Exeter: “There are a lot of details to sort out because we wasted a lot of chances at the start of the match.”

The period Ménager had in mind is easy to pinpoint. Those early seven minutes when France were camped in Italy’s 22, laying siege to the tryline; when a lack of precision and fluidity as much as aggressive defence kept them at bay; when France could, should have scored – and almost but not-quite managed it, as Vernier set Ménager herself crashing through a small gap a few metres out. A score seemed inevitable but the skipper was held up over the line.

That could have been a sliding doors moment. Italy have caused France plenty of problems in the past – most recently during this year’s Six Nations’ meeting in Parma when the home side led 21-12 at halftime – and Les Bleues’ inability to turn extended pressure into points briefly seemed portentous. If they couldn’t score after ramping the pressure up to 11, when would they?

And, then, deja-vu kicked in. The opening rounds of this year’s Six Nations, when handling errors, impatience and a lack of precision threatened to cost them dearly before France almost snatched the Grand Slam from England. A dismal WXV1 run last autumn, when they lost two of their three outings to finish second from bottom. It all came nervily flooding back.

Joanna Grisez’s try just before the half-hour settled French nerves even as the crowd rallied behind Italy, while a Morgane Bourgeois’ penalty extended their lead. But 10-0 at halftime, with a second try ruled out, was no reward for 40 minutes spent almost exclusively deep in Italian territory. At the same time, it was arguably more than France deserved, given the slapdash nature of their attack.

“We dominated the scrum and the lineout, but we couldn’t score,” joint head coach Gaëlle Mignot acknowledged afterwards. “We had to focus on our approach to contact and clean rucks. When we have clean rucks, we can set up our game.”

Patience and precision were the obvious keywords for the half-time teamtalk. And they were heeded. Khalfaoui burst over five minutes after the restart, after calm and accurate build-up through the phases. A quarter of an hour later, Charlotte Escudero – who can’t have been far behind Vernier in the player-of-the-match discussions – scored France’s third.

14 unanswered second-half points with nearly a quarter of the match to go should, perhaps, have been the catalyst for more. But that was the last movement of the scoreboard. A win, no try-scoring bonus. No particular frills, but enough. The wait for a performance worthy of a World Cup challenge goes on.

Almost ironically, co-coach David Ortiz appealed for patience afterwards. “In terms of attitude, solidarity, and heart in defence, it’s clear [we] showed a completely different face compared to the one against England. But we know we still have more in the tank. We can still develop and improve. We still need more playing time to gel.”

Work-in-progress France have their first points, and have partially cleared their path through to the knockout phase. The problems in attack, though apparently long-standing, should be fairly straightforward to address – let’s be honest, there’s no doubting the individual talents of Vernier, Ménager, Escudero, Grisez, Arbey and Arbez.

A number of players are likely to be rested for next week’s match against Brazil. But one player should be back and desperate for gametime: scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus will be available for selection again after serving a two-match ban for questioning refereeing standards in the French domestic Elite 1 league.

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Pundit Marjorie Mayans believes she is the gamechanger France needs. “[Bourdon Sansus] has the ability to shake everyone up,” Mayans wrote in her Women’s Rugby World Cup column for Midi Olympique. “She knows how to read a game.

“When the rhythm slows and everyone gets a little tense because things aren’t going as planned, she speeds up the game, takes a quick penalty and forces everyone to move forward again.

“She takes attacking decisions that force everyone to follow her. It’s something she imposes on others and that pushes the whole team. This is essential for the French team, where players sometimes have a tendency to stick too closely to their roles.”

After Italy, then, the foundations are in place for France’s Rugby World Cup challenge – the necessary unseen work complete. At least, fans will hope so. Because France have two more pool matches to set everything in stone in time for the knockouts.