Why back-to-back France are so far behind the World Cup standard

The game has changed over the years. Comparing England’s 2001 team to France’s 2026 team from a statistical point of view is not very smart.

I don’t see France winning the WC unless they can very quickly come up with a set of high-standard props: starters, bench and injury cover, not just Gros. A very high number of scrum penalties killed them in the autumn international v SA, as very clearly described by Dan Cole on For the Love of Rugby. The unusually large number of contestables - imposed by the coaches as the first stage in development of a new aerial strategy, not an aberration of those blamed! - was unsuccessful then, but once refined and once Attisogbe was swapped in for Penaud, it has since become a success.

There’s been a lot of hype around this year’s French team, but the pack, and the team in general, hasn’t been as good as it was in the last 6N, which is a worry.

UBB currently has a heavy influence on the French attack, with 4 backs in the national team, when they’re not injured: Jalibert, LBB, Moefana and Deportere. Also, as many pundits have remarked, Dupont is assuming a traditional scrum half role, more like Lucu, to provide Jalibert with the ball he requires to play his natural game, as he does for UBB (see Joe Worsley’s excellent comparison of UBB and ST styles on FRUK just before the start of the 6N), instead of Dupont playing in his own unique, best in the world way.

Select Ntamack at 10 once he’s recovered, then Dupont can express his full genius, each player getting the best out of the other, instead of a conflict of styles leading to one or the other being stifled; and the defence will strengthened too. .

The cheat code LBB wouldn’t lose his brilliance without Jalibert. He has a high work rate as well as amazing speed, and Dupont, Ramos, and Ntamack are all used to spotting space and kicking ahead/across for other players to collect and score - Dupont and Ramos did this on Saturday. With Dupont playing at his brilliant best with a compatible scrum half, there’d be more variety in attack, and less reliance on LBB - heaven forbid he gets injured!

Another thing I’m wondering about, after Fikou, which players have been chosen as defensive captain, not helped by the frequent changes of the centres due to injury? Whoever they are, they will presumably be young and inexperienced at the moment, with some time to improve before the WC.

I’m afraid this paper is mostly on point. France is not going to score 40 or 50 points against the boks, so they need to find a way to have a solid defence again. And I don’t believe this is linked to te post ecort law. France played that game of high kicks against Ireland and Wales (and a bit against Italia), and their opponent played it back. France scored a lot from it, but was strong in defence.

England played that way the four opening games with very poor offensive results.

Against France, just like Scotland did, they played mostly with ball in hands, one carry after another. It was some good “classic” rugby, well played but nothing new.

And that was enough to butcher that french defense, we were never able to slow down or contest the ball. And when you just take a wave after another, eventually, you drown. In 2022, France knew how to kill the momentum and make the opponent really work to score points, that’s not the cas anymore.

Another thing bothering me : there is barely an offensive gameplan, except kick for LBB and hope for the best. The raw talent of Dupont, Jalibert, Ramos, Attisogbe or LBB makes it work for now, but it could be so much better with some “Irish style” play from time to time.

That team just doesn’t look half as strong as in 2022, and the world coup is coming…

I think Ben Smith is missing what everyone else are seeing. Attacks are winning out in the post escort law. In the 6N at least rugby is in major transition. Structured defence is being replaced by ability to defend in unstructured situations, scramble etc.

A team who is winning this type of match can put up a very big score as the chasing team must go even more loose to close deficits.

Thus the famous SA v NZ Wellington encounter may not have been the trashing it was lauded to be. SA’s attack gameplan was all out attack in unstructured situations.

Ireland beat Scotland 43-21 but that match could have gone either way.

6Ns teams are attacking and defending week in week out in this new game. The standard has rarely being higher across all 6 teams. The winner of next years 6N will be serious RWC contenders, end of story.

Just to note the author only uses RWC finals to make his point. These are notoriously low scoring low risk affairs due to fatigue, pressure. After the QFs all knock outs start to tighten up. Case in point France conceded 8 in losing 8-7 to NZ in the 2011 final after conceding almost 40 to them in the pool stage.

France have plenty of time and expertise to sort out their defence. Their attack may be firing but they have not moved that far away from their kick and turnover approach. They have the tools to win matches in many different ways. The question is if they can actually execute when it really matters

Score enough points and the defence won’t matter.

What are going on about Penaud? He was dropped. Hasn't featured at all this year for France, did you get AI to write this?

Don’t disagree with this, although I think that the bigger factor is that the full French test team rarely ventures south of the equator, instead sending “B” or development-type squads and therefore lack experience of winning tough test matches outside of European conditions.

The French “D” has been leaking points for a few years for sure though, have teams worked out Shaun Edwards’ system?