Are France devaluing the Six Nations?

vorbis

A hard thing to do since they can't stop winning it :mad:

But seriously, this quote from planet rugby says it all

Morgan Parra, François Trinh-Duc and Louis Picamoles had less than 100 minutes of test experience between them when they ran out against England in front of 80,000 people in St Denis.

This is frankly ridiculous. People will point to rebuilding but what are they rebuilding for ?! The next world cup is 4 years away for heavens sake!

At scrumhalf, they had a choice of Elissale or Yaschvili. At outhalf, they could have picked Skrela or Michalak (is he injured). Buxais has gone from starting as out half in the world cup quarter final against the All Blacks to being passed over for Trinh-Duc. They had even planned to drop Clerc for the Ireland match!

I'm honestly confused, my friends say it is the French being French but is there any method to their madness. I firmly believe that they win matches in spite of their coaches not because of them.

pwd

did ireland devalue the world cup by not replacing badly off-form players, and not developing any depth to the side?

zAbbo

Whats the point in giving away caps in meaningless test matches, the players were going to have to get experience somehow.

Freddie Michalak is down in South Africa playing, so he wasn't considered.

juvenal

vorbis wrote: »

Michalak (is he injured)

Playing in South Africa with the Sharks, so not available for the 6N as he said before the WC.

hardCopy

I don't see any harm in it.

Better to give people a chance 4 years out and have an opportunity at developing a great player, if the guy turns out to be crap then at least they have 4 years to find someone else.

No use finding a great player right before the world cup and having no chance for him to settle. Or BOD forbid, having your one and only outhalf injured at or just before the World Cup with nobody else experienced enough to replace him.

Stev_o

Elissale was injured and Yaschvili had only come back from injury

toomevara

Thought Parra was excellent...Trinh Duc not too bad, France will be there or there abouts this year regardless, so no I don't think they're devaluing it. In fact, to be honest, up to last weekend they were the only team who managed to string any decent/entertaining rugby together at all.......

themont85

I devalues it alright. Countries like France and Nz i believe go way overboard with the building of a squad. Obviously Ireland go overboard with not blooding players but the Australia/SA model of blooding players is far better I reckon.

quagmire69

no, their looking out for their future, unlike others.

Shan75

Hardly.They have won their first two games and it is not uncommon for them to be beaten by England.They have managed to blood a good few players while still be competitive.They could still win the championship so I can't see how they are devaluing it.

vorbis

the thing is it seems for the past 4 / 5 years, France have been blooding youngsters for the future! The next world cup I repeat is FOUR years away. Until then, the biggest tournament the French national team (the only one) is the six nations. Skrela and Yaschivili should have started the England match. There was no need to play the likes of Parra from the start. With both Ellisale and Yaschivili the French have no scrum half crisis. Against Scotland or Italy you could start those type of players.

But the Ireland, England and Wales matches in the 6N this year. These are the biggest matches the French team will have this year! Why wouldn't you play your best team?

Shan75

vorbis wrote: »

the thing is it seems for the past 4 / 5 years, France have been blooding youngsters for the future! The next world cup I repeat is FOUR years away. Until then, the biggest tournament the French national team (the only one) is the six nations. Skrela and Yaschivili should have started the England match. There was no need to play the likes of Parra from the start. With both Ellisale and Yaschivili the French have no scrum half crisis. Against Scotland or Italy you could start those type of players.

But the Ireland, England and Wales matches in the 6N this year. These are the biggest matches the French team will have this year! Why wouldn't you play your best team?

I would agree with you in regards to Skrela especially as Trinh Duc has not been overly impressive but Yaschvili is only coming back from injury and Ellisalde(best French scrumhalf imo) is injured so it made perfect sense to start Parra always knowing you could bring in Yaschvili if Parra had a nightmare.As it turned out he played relatively well.I don't think the French personnel are necessarily to blame as the system they are trying to employ.You simply cannot run every single ball.Even the great French flair teams of the past had a degree of structure to their game and only ran ball when it made sense.Lievremont wants to play an all out attacking game which is great to watch when it comes off but makes the team look ridiculous at times when it's not working especially when they try to run bad ball from their own goal line.In this regard Skrela could probably add a bit of the much needed structure but I think the rest of the team is fair enough although it must be worrying from a French perspective that their scrum is not great.

il gatto

They've a huge pool of players to choose from, and I suppose reports coming from all directions about great young players. I'd imagine Livremont will settle on similar teams for the last two matches. He doesn't want to be seen to put out the same team as Laporte minus retirements.
I don't think a bit of chopping and changing is devaluing the 6N. It's not like they sent out a second string team in any match. They're mostly quality players. And they're still in a good position to win it again. England are Frances bogey team, in the same way France are ours.