'We've got the players': The 'big issue' stopping France from winning the RWC

Former flanker Serge Betsen believes France have the players at their disposal to win the World Cup, but says the players’ current workload is the major hurdle that needs to be overcome.

The 63-cap France international believes the number of games that the players from the national team play a season is “horrendous” currently, such are the demands of the Top 14.

Not only is the Top 14 a 26-game regular season, with play-offs on top, but there has been at least one French team in the Investec Champions Cup final each year for the last six years, meaning the workload for the players only increases.

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The 2023 Rugby World Cup quarter final between New Zealand and Ireland will forever be remembered as an all time classic. Episode one of Tests of Time looks into what made that night so special. Watch now on RugbyPass TV.

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As a result, this creates inconsistency with the national team, he said. Many of France’s stars were indeed rested for their summer tour of New Zealand, allowing a new crop of players to come through, but Betsen believes this needs to go on throughout the season for club and country.

The former Biarritz and Wasps back-row looked at how England manage their Red Roses players as the way forward.

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“Overall, France rugby is doing well, but not enough to win the World Cup yet,” Betsen said as a guest on the Stick to Rugby podcast.

“Hopefully, in the next two years, we will have to improve something.

“We managed to win the gold medal at the Olympic Sevens, which means we’ve got the potential to really do well.

“The consistency in France is always our big issue. We need to be mentally tougher. Technically, we are amazing, we’ve got the players. The players need to be coached the way forward.

“We talk about the number of matches French players play, it’s horrendous, you cannot sustain that. I think the area of improvement is how well the players are looked after in order to play and be effective.

“You see the way England look after the women’s team. As professional teams, France are still far behind. That is, for me, the way forward.”

“When I arrived at Wasps, I was 35 and our fitness coach that, as a 35-year-old, I needed to be coached differently. I learned that in one season, you cannot do more than 35 games. That is the reality of the body. For a prop, it is maybe 20 games. That is a fact of the physicality. For me, that is the way forward.

“If I had a magic wand, I would say ‘don’t play more than 15 games all year.’

“A good example is Toulouse. They keep putting players forward, but they’re always trying to protect the stars. They try to make sure some of the younger stars are filling in. So it’s about balance.”