When the French national team attacks with unpredictable and seemingly spontaneous panache, the English-speaking rugby world explains it as French flair. Implying that there is a mysterious creative rugby gene that miraculously exists only in players born in France.
Having worked in France for many years, I can testify that it is not the presence of some genetic mutation that creates flair but rather the outcome of players being exposed to a unique philosophy starting in the junior days of the rugby journey that carries right through to the national team. Other countries do not comprehend the complex rugby skills that are taught to French players on how to identify and attack space.
For more than 60 years, French rugby has been following a disciplined path that teaches rugby principles that completely contradict the stereotype surrounding French rugby in the English-speaking world. It is not a spiritual awakening that produces incredible running rugby, rather it’s like learning a martial art. French rugby players are taught the skills to avoid contact and keep the ball at chest height. To go to ground means failure. A breakdown is just that. The attack has been broken.
In the 1950s, the French philosophy of play was brought to the rugby world’s attention by the staggering rugby intellect of the World Rugby Hall of Fame inductee Jean Prat. He won multiple French championships as a player for the pilgrimage village of Lourdes and coached France to their first Grand Slam in 1968. English-speaking commentators claimed that Prat’s team played with flair, but Claude Spanghero, a legendary member of that team, once told me it was won by physical determination and long-practised skills.
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When they coached Toulouse, the wonderful rugby minds of Jean-Claude Skrela and Pierre Villepreux developed Prat’s philosophy to win the Bouclier de Brennus three times during the 1980s. They further developed the philosophy when guiding France to their second World Cup final in 1999. Despite the obvious rigorous technical foundation of the French coaching system, the myth persisted that France played with no strategic plan.
France had a plan, but the rest of the rugby world could not understand it. This created the false perception that all that great French play simply appeared without preparation.
Today’s France coach, Fabien Galthié, is alive in the spirit and history of French rugby. His greatest foresight has been informed by looking back at how the great French teams of the past performed.
In the decade before Galthié was appointed as head coach, in 2019, the French national team had become a shadow of its former self, winning only 45 per cent of their games. As a student of the game, Galthié breathed life back into French rugby by embracing the teachings of Prat, Skrela and Villepreux. He has returned the eternal rugby truths of their philosophies back to the international stage.
During the first 40 minutes on Thursday night, the French play was like Galthié opening a window into the geniuses of that coaching trio. Seeing into the minds of those who had crafted the intricate processes of teaching French forwards – such assecondrower Charles Ollivon and man of the match Mickaël Guillard – the mastery of ball-carrying skills. Ollivon and Guillard personified the famous words of Villepreux, who preached that “we must teach our forwards to play more like backs, not our backs to play more like forwards”.
Displaying explosive power on contact, then using exceptional footwork to stay on their feet and refusing to go to ground, picking up postcontact metres, Ollivon and Guillard generated the enormous power required for France to dominate their counterparts. The French locks laid down the platform that released their team-mates’ supreme passing skills to repeatedly move possession into the hands of their wingers Louis Bielle-Biarry and Théo Attissogbe. The two wingers exquisitely exploited the last few centimetres of grass on the Stade de France to string together breathtaking tries and sparkling runs.
Villepreux’s words reverberated inside the Stade de France in the lead up to Ollivon’s try, as loosehead Jean-Baptiste Gros passed to Attissogbe before he linked back inside with Guillard and Ollivon. Forwards playing like backs.
None of this was created by some ephemeral notion of flair. This was long practised, hard won, high-level rugby IQ on display. The result of exceptional coaching based on a long tradition of French rugby philosophy. While it shattered Irish hearts, it was spectacularly uplifting to watch.
In the opening 25 minutes, France dominated 70 per cent of possession, with Ireland missing 13 tackles. As the excellence of the French running and attacking game began to totally dominate the Irish defence, the statistics made Ireland’s task nearly impossible. After the opening quarter, France had taken the match beyond Ireland’s reach.
The humiliation for Ireland was vast. The French kicking strategy exploited the glaring holes in Ireland’s backfield defensive set-up. Jamison Gibson-Park had his worst defensive game in a green jersey, missing multiple tackles, yet Ireland persisted in playing him in their front line, with no player sweeping to cover any kicks close behind the Irish defensive line.
Once again, Galthié had done his homework. Antoine Dupont and Matthieu Jalibert repeatedly attacked the space behind the Irish defensive line with controlled chip kicks over the defenders.
Twice France regathered from these tactical kicks, scoring two tries. The bounce of the ball did favour the French, but as the US Navy Seals say, “luck is the residue of preparation”, and the French kicking strategy was based on strong analytical evidence.
It was a very tough night for Ireland. Not only did the French hand out a lesson in tactical attack kicking, but they also displayed more skill, enthusiasm and power. The lack of energy from Ireland was alarming. Their body language at the 20-minute mark said they did not believe they could win and they were right. France possessed a vastly superior game plan that outplayed and out-thought Ireland in every department.
Despite Ireland’s complete defeat for the third year in a row, this fixture produced outstanding rugby. When rugby is being played like it was at the Stade de France, it is one of the most entertaining sports on the globe.
For Irish players, it is going to be a long week to endure before they can attempt to put things right against a vastly improving Italian team.
As for Galthié, he may well be switching his trademark specs for some sunglasses, and starting to hum an old tune from the 1980s.
“The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.”
