Joanna Grisez: 'We cannot escape reality- we are a bit behind right now'

The last 12 months have been a rollercoaster of emotions for Joanna Grisez.

Playing in front of 60,000 spectators at a home Olympic Games in Paris followed by the gut-wrenching disappointment of bowing out in the quarter finals, mere days after the male counterparts won gold.

While the mental scars healed over time, the physical ones took their place: a four-month lay-off with a knee injury then caused Grisez to miss a large chunk of the regular 15s season too.

The Stade Bordelais winger is now back to full fitness and is hoping to head to a second Rugby World Cup this summer off the back of an impactful two-match cameo at the business end of this season’s Women’s Six Nations.

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

‘This Energy Never Stops’ – Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025

“I knew that I needed to get back into the squad and do well as I have come back from a knee injury that had kept me out of the game for around four months,” Grisez tells RugbyPass.

“Fortunately, it wasn’t my ACL but still serious enough to stop me for an extended time, so it wasn’t nothing. So, there was a little bit of pressure to show what I could do.

“That said, I didn’t necessarily think of these matches as ones where I was under a lot of pressure but clearly in a World Cup year, you need to be showing what you are capable of and try to put in strong performances.”

Grisez was a central part of France’s last World Cup campaign in New Zealand, bagging a hat-trick of tries against Italy in the quarter finals and featuring in the semi-final which France lost out to the hosts by a single point.

The 24-year-old knows how to perform on the big stage and how important it is to manage the pressure against the world’s best teams.

“The World Cup is so much more demanding than a Six Nations, both from a mental and physical point of view.

“For a start, it’s every four years, so the pressure is enormous, and you know that you need to perform otherwise you might not get another chance.

“The matches are a lot closer together so physically you need to be on top of your game, try to avoid getting injured but still playing to the intensity that the tournament requires.

“It’s a huge challenge but one that I absolutely love, and I would love to be part of the World Cup squad again.”

The French side has been on a rollercoaster of its own in recent years, having endured oscillating form in each of the WXV 1 tournaments and failing to get the better of arch northern hemisphere rivals England since their last victory over the Red Roses in 2018.

David Ortiz and Gaëlle Mignot’s squad have shown signs of a resurgence, however, and a strong Six Nations campaign in which they pushed England all the way in search of a first Grand Slam in seven years is, according to Grisez, proof that the team is moving in the right direction.

“I think we took a lot of confidence in our ability to change our game plan and how we attacked them,” Grisez reflects.

“Unfortunately, the game was probably lost in a poor 20-minute period in the first half; we weren’t accurate enough, we dropped a lot of passes, and they were just better than us, which was really disappointing.

“I think that is what cost us the game, because we let them score three or four tries without answer, and we couldn’t do anything. That said, the way we managed to get back into the game, by opening up the attack and playing to our strengths gave us a lot of belief that we could actually do it and win the game. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be.

“We can take a lot of positives from the game though, that we were able to play that way, we were able to move them and put them under pressure and it gives us a lot of confidence that if we can play like that again, we have the ability to challenge the top teams.”

Having struggled to put away Italy in their penultimate match of the tournament, few would have given France much hope of halting England’s runaway Grand Slam train in front of 37,573 supporters at Twickenham and a whirlwind 20-minute spell in the first half in which the hosts built a 31-7 lead seemed to suggest one-way traffic.

Whether it was a tactical switch, Pauline Bourdon-Sansus’s try against the run of play at the end of the first half, or a combination of both, Les Bleues displayed a far more attacking-orientated, expansive game in the second period, playing to the strengths of Grisez and fellow winger Kelly Arbey.

 

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Indeed, the lack of pressure and freedom to express themselves in attack is, according to Grisez, exactly the sort of response needed from a team that is beginning to embrace its ‘underdog’ tag.

“There is less expectation on this group in general, we are kind of the underdogs it has to be said,” admits Grisez.

“We cannot escape this reality at the moment; England and New Zealand are probably the big favourites, and we are a bit behind right now. So, the pressure is not really on us, which can have a positive impact on the squad; we can just do our jobs well, stick to our game plans and see how we go.”

They may not have been able to front up at home against the world’s top ranked side, but the form guide says France are closest to beating the top teams when on the road. Prior to their narrow defeat in April, France fell five points short in 2023 and four short in 2021 at the Twickenham Stoop.

During the WXV1 tournament in 2023, they also stunned the hosts New Zealand in round one.

So, does playing away from home make the chances of a World Cup upset more likely? Grisez won’t be drawn on that subject but realises that, with the pressure on hosts England and joint-favourites New Zealand, nothing is set in stone yet.

“I’ve always thought that it is sometimes easier for me to play away from home, where perhaps the pressure isn’t as big as it would be playing in France for example.

“The whole squad, as a group, know how strong we can be so yes this has given us a sense of optimism, but we know that England is still the best team in the world and we need to be at our best to be able to beat them, this is not a secret.

“They are the reference, and they will be the favourites for the World Cup at home but having more chances to take the fight to them is a big benefit for us.

“So, for us to compete with them until the very end in the Six Nations, only losing by a point shows the progress that we have made in the recent years and that nothing is a given in the women’s game.”