England France 6 Nations thread

FrancieBrady

Anjobe wrote: »

To paraphrase Luke Skywalker, everything you said in that post is wrong.

So late hit on Hogg bad, late hits on Sexton ok.

I think you are the confused one to be honest. Not getting into a protracted debate with somebody like yourself tbh.

Anjobe

FrancieBrady wrote: »

So late hit on Hogg bad, late hits on Sexton ok.

I think you are the confused one to be honest. Not getting into a protracted debate with somebody like yourself tbh.

Perhaps you should inform yourself of what constitutes a late tackle in the laws of rugby union before attempting to comment on the subject in a public forum.

Burkie1203

FrancieBrady wrote: »

O'Mahony was committed to the tackle, he didn't do anything illegal and that was backed up by the officials who took no action. So let's move on. :rolleyes:

The officials took no action in several Munster games recently. And the general consensus was they got it wrong. Funny that

Wheres Me Jumper?

Dr. Bre wrote: »

England beat wales and it’s the grand slam cos they finish with Scotland Italy

that's gonna be the match of the tournie 4 sure.
difficult 1 to call

iroced

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Plenty of talent in the team and in French rugby.

Under 20 World Champions with a few very promising players. Alright. Dupont is a great player. Guirado would have been a star had he played in some of the former winning French teams. The backs are alright. But we have no 10, no props, we are weak in second row (bar Ithuria) and our back row is not up to the standard of international level.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

It could be turned around quickly.

No.

conor678 wrote: »

Pretty sure that's what Conor o Shea is doing with Italy. If you look at the u20 and other junior teams they're doing quite well and have some major scalps.

Also hired a chap from the irfu who revamped the Irish underage system and is doing the same with Italy so it's a long project but it's starting.

Could over take France when it starts bearing fruit, who knows

Nope he'd fail in the end.

corny wrote: »

They're poorly coached. After three phases in attack no one knows what to do next. They just throw it around and hope for the best. You would have to feel sorry for the players. They're wonderfully talented individuals but they regularly get exposed by better drilled sides. That has to be disheartening, especially if you're around a long time.

If Schmidt went in there he'd make the problems with the league academic and within 2 years they'd be 6 nations champions.

In short they need a Kiwi!

Neither. In the end, he'd fail too.

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

Its far deeper than head coach of senior national team but number of non french players is a major factor as is french sides instead of working on french players are setting up academies in Fiji etc.

We do have plenty of young talented players, they won the WC last year. The problem is beyond that.

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

It goes deeper than the national coach I think. Its the coaching level of the top teams that has not kept pace. It is fine within its own confines, and success in the T14 with a decent showing in the ERC can give the illusion that all is OK. But it isnt.

Its nothing to do with foreign players. The playing numbers in France are more than enough. The raw material in the squad, physically, is still there. But the week in week out sophistication of play is not there. And a national coach cannot fix that.

French domestic rugby has fallen behind, and it is too late to correct that at national level. Exacerbated by persevering with a French national coach who just transplants the limitations of the French club scene to the national level.

I partly agree with that.

I mean, the main reason behind your assessment is the one why I'm disproving all the previous comment. 3 letters, 2 numbers. TOP14. Or shall I say the monster it has become.

I've been hammering it for 10 years now. Its structure is killing our rugby.

1. We play too many games. A month more than England (e.g. since 2008 Owen Farrell played about 160 games with his club while Camille Lopez played 220). A year more every four years than the Southern hemispheres teams (I remember the comparison between Dusautoir & McCaw in between our last 2 WC encounters).

It was OK for the first years since there were big level gaps between top & bottom teams (Top 14 started in 2005-06 ; the previous year it was Top 16 with a single pool but before that it used to be 2 pools of 8 teams). But since ~ 2010 with the rise of the "new rich" teams, it's a battle in which only a couple of clubs are excluded). And in 2012, as expected, our national team was diagnosed with a very advanced case of cancer and it died in 2015. Its heir is still carrying a long-term illness.

2. With all the money and the new power of Top14, the pressure not to go down has dramatically increased in the last 10 years. As a result, being relegated is a disaster that can destroy clubs. So Top14 has slowly but surely made teams play not to loose instead of to win. In that context, the playing is conservative, with the forwards and a lot of scrummaging. Very physical but not with top fitness and pace, just with brutal physicality. The refereeing goes with it and focus more on getting every detail of the law right instead of letting the game flow. Basically old fashioned conservative rugby which is the exact opposite of modern winning rugby. International refereeing is pretty much opposite too to Top14 one. As a result we have slowly ended playing a different sport than most of the rest of the World.

3. No foreign coach will change that or he'll have to start a revolution and fight all the powers in place in French rugby. They could make adjustments, change a few things but as long as Top14 stays the same, it is bound to failure. Because its wrong physicality just destroys our players. We don't try and make 100 phases of intense playing, we take up some weight and run at each others like charging buffaloes. A direct consequence is our players play less minutes (50-60) per games (to avoid injuries) so when they face high intensity for 80 mins at international level, they can't run the whole game...

4. As a result, our academies do not teach or are late to teach (our U20 team was such a breath of fresh air last year) modern rugby and the offload pass is still seen as a dangerous one especially if you're a forward instead of seeing it as a breaking the lines one... And anyway, when our young gazelles enter Top14, they're quickly reformated into buffaloes.

5. Foreign players are the easy excuse. First, when our youngsters are good, they play. Dupont plays. Even the ones that some clubs fail to develop, they go elsewhere and play (e.g. Fickou that Toulon "lost" to Toulouse). Second, even our so-called foreign stars turn bad in Top14. I can see one real success recently in Jonny Wilkinson who played multiple full seasons at top level. Most of the other stars failed (Carter, 5 games with USAP then injured and then played half-seasons with Racing, Sexton no comment, Ashley-Cooper, 2 decent seasons but fairly anonymous in the end, etc...).



Last year, England had a crap 6N. Everyone said it was expected because it was the season after The Lions summer Tour, they didn't have enough holiday and rest blahblahblah. This year, they rested and look at them now! It's not rocket science, you don't even have to go down too much into the technicality of rugby as a sport. You reduce the number of games in Top14, you increase the period of rest/recovery. How hard is it to understand that modern rugby requires more resting and recovering?! You'll have more time to better prepare tactics, gameplans and build attacking phases. And slowly but surely we will catch up on international standards. Of course we'll struggle the first couple of seasons 'cause we're not used to this kind of playing (exactly what Lièvremont experienced 10 years ago - Jeez' we already lost 10 years how depressingly pathetical...) but if everyone is going into the same direction, if we finally understand that the clubs and the national team would both benefit from these changes, then for the WC 2023, we'll be competitive. Otherwise, forget about France. I repeat it's done and dusted, it's over.

Deleted User wrote: »

Agree with this bar Novés. If Saint André was bringing a dated gameplan then Novés was a further step back from the modern international game. I would say Novés has a better understanding of rugby and would bring up the skill level of any group he coaches - but he's painfully ill equipped at international level where detail is required to consistently break down good defences.

Just on this. I don't know if Novès would have been great for current modern rugby but I don't agree that he's more an animal from the past than PSA. In his 2 years, he tried to apply what he did so successfully with Toulouse. But he was alone. We were actually seeing a bit of progress (of course limited since Top14 is an everlasting obstacle to any attempt of improvement) but a catastrophic November series "killed" him. And well Laporte couldn't wait for his sacking...

FrancieBrady

Burkie1203 wrote: »

The officials took no action in several Munster games recently. And the general consensus was they got it wrong. Funny that

It genuinely amazes me that some posters don't see the contradiction here. They come on to whinge about something like the Hogg tackle/hit but turn a blind eye to other blatant hits/targeting.
These macho chaps are just traditionalists who can't see that allowing players with more talent and speed to be protected by the laws will make the game better because it will be about playing rugby not about using cynical muscle to win games.
For instance the rule that covers taking a player out in the air has made the game better and a lot of the time it ignores the excuse that 'you were already committed to the tackle'. The onus is on the opposing player to stay within the rules as well as insisting on a duty of care. Not very 'it's the way he plays/it's his own fault for being so good' macho-ness, but there you go.

The FFR should bring Vern Cotter in now with a view of at least making France consistent by the RWC.

He's not French, but he's been there a long time and knows a lot of the players from coaching them or coaching against them every week. He was reasonably successful with Scotland but considering where they had come from he was actually very successful in my book.

Wheres Me Jumper?

Anjobe wrote: »

Perhaps you should inform yourself of what constitutes a late tackle in the laws of rugby union before attempting to comment on the subject in a public forum.

LMAO.
our mutual friend frankie never allowed ignorance of the facts to restrain his meandering pontifications.
i see no reason why he would start now.

FrancieBrady

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The FFR should bring Vern Cotter in now with a view of at least making France consistent by the RWC.

He's not French, but he's been there a long time and knows a lot of the players from coaching them or coaching against them every week. He was reasonably successful with Scotland but considering where they had come from he was actually very successful in my book.

Have they lost all games in a 6 nations?

troyzer

FrancieBrady wrote: »

Have they lost all games in a 6 nations?

Not since the 1957 Five Nations have they lost all of their games.

Vinnie222

Burkie1203 wrote: »

The officials took no action in several Munster games recently. And the general consensus was they got it wrong. Funny that

Differences is a few of those players were cited and served bans . Was POM cited ?

Anjobe

Vinnie222 wrote: »

Differences is a few of those players were cited and served bans . Was POM cited ?

Citing is only for clear red card offenses - this was a penalty and possible yellow card so no citing, just like Tuilagi's clear out of Stockdale in the Ire vs Eng game.