Scotland vs France

Steffano2002 wrote: »

And for Poitrenaud, I don't think I'm being harsh. He's HUGE for Toulouse! An absolutely wonderful 15. But as soon as he dawns the French jersey he's not the same. He seems nervous and scared to play... A pity really...

Poitrenaud was one of the players of the tournament in 2010.

I agree, I'm definitely radical!

But you guys just think I set the bar too high and expect too much of my national team?

I don't think I do... I realistically expect us to be the best in the world. And I don't think we can achieve this with Thrinh-Duc at 10, Szarzewski at 2 and Rougerie anywhere near the stadium!

Really wouldn't be surprised if we lost to Ireland and England. Unless we pull the finger out and tighten everything up!

iroced wrote: »

About Szarzewski, what do you mean poor in the line-out? Poor in the throwing?
Then poor in the scrum? Well if your vision is as binary as World class hooker or poor hooker then you're right...

About Trinh-Duc you must not be serious... "refuses to pass the ball to the back line" : That comment sounds like you've only been watching youtube videos about FTD...
You're really exaggerating the facts a loooooot. That kills your points. It's a pity. Trinh-Duc actually played a couple of games for France at number 12. He's been given international responsibilities at a young age and from a team that used to play the bottom of the Top 14. He's been constantly progressing at 10 for several years now. He's Montpellier playmaker for a couple of years and Montpellier is hardly performing well without him. He has a great vision of the game. He now needs to be more consistent at international level.

About Rougerie, you're not being neutral in your comparisons. You're exaggerating his "disability" to tackle and are only emphasizing on his weak points. Jauzion and Fritz have been and still are as much criticized in France than Rougerie. The former for his "slowness" the latter for his "crazyness" (he's a brilliant player but anytime he can crack up and committ a stupid bad foul - bar his injuries that's the main reason why he has not been called more often to play for Les Bleus -).

About Poitrenaud, again you're only concentrating on his bad points. I don't think he's been that disatrous with the French jersey. At the image of our team he has been inconsistent. He has been weak under high kicks and has been making bad decisions to launch attacking phases (trying to run when he should have kicked and vice versa). But he's also been brilliant at times (he's very effective to break defenses from his quick footwork).

But see, to me you're simply setting the bar too low... With your (IMO: very low) expectations we're not going to amount to much.

When I think back to the game against Scotland I remember:

- a number 10 who tried to break the line by himself far too many times when we had options wide and that try Fofana scored woud have been easier had he passed the ball (5 against 3 on the wing) instead of needlessly crashing into the defense and slowing everything down...

- a centre (Rougerie) who once again missed about 75% of his tackles and did very little in attack. Fofana has scored 2 tries already in 2 games and made some wonderful tackles! If you ask me we ony have 1 centre...

- a hooker that lost the ball every single time he touched it against Scotland! Poor throw-ins (no surprises there, he can't throw) and weak in the scrum (as soon as Servat came on we pummeled Scotland!)

So perhaps you think I'm too harsh or radical or unreasonable but you don't become the best team in the world with "decent" players. You need "great" players!

I believe Trinh-Duc can improve (he's still very young) and as for Poitrenaud, I love the guy and it's just disappointment I feel when he plays poorly in blue because I know what he's capable of (I am a Toulouse supporter). But Rougerie and Szarzewski have got to go...

And to think Servat is retiring... We're truly screwed at 2!

@ Steffano : Yeah I see what you mean. I just felt you were putting too much emphasis on this last game in Scotland where we played ... "strangely" I'd say.
PSA repeated during the whole week that he was afraid we could not resist the Scots intensity, the many phases of play they are capable of building for 5-6 or even more min etc... etc... and I was speechless at his comments as, without any offense to the Scots (they only beat us once in the last 10 years), it was "only" Scotland.

But I could also tell you that with roughly the same team we should be World Champion .


Looking in more detail at you criticism,

• I don't see any stand out alternative at 2? The thing with Szarzewski too is he's been in the shadow of Servat for so long... I guess he needs a bit of time to fill in the boots of a "starter". Then, I can't say how good or bad he really is as I don't watch enough SF games but I'm sure Szarzewski can do better than his display against Scotland and I kind of remember him having fairly good games in Blue under Laporte...
  
  
• And I still think you're too radical with Rougerie. I agree though that Fritz has a lot more to offer but what about his "temper"? What do you think of Mermoz? He's not having a good season with USAP but the year they got the Brennus he was excellent and he confirmed it last year.

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@ Tox56 : Well it's also a running joke in France and you can apply it to other sports (soccer for example, remember the WC 2006). I'd see 2 potential explanations to that.

• There's something cultural, a little bit clichéesque probably but we have a latin mentality, very volatile and when we know we're good, we inconsciously think we don't need to make the efforts it's gonna work, we're gonna win whereas when we're underdogs, when everyone sees us fail, we seem to find the resources (maybe we just focus more) to get the result. The last RWC is quite a good illustration of that.
  
  
• The other thing lies in how we are educated to sport in France. The Coubertin spirit "the most important thing is to participate". So we're not growing with this fighting spirit, this winning mentality that anglo-saxons have. Of course it doesn't really apply to professional sport but again inconsciously that's part of our heritage. For example, I've been surprised to realise that in Ireland sport at Uni is very competitive. You get into a team that plays competition, you can't just go out once or twice a week and play with friends, which is how it is in Uni in France (and aside that, if you want competition you go in the Uni team).

That being said, there are many counter examples :

• soccer Euro 2000 where we got the equaliser in added time and won the competition with the golden goal against Italy ;
• the Handball team who won 4 major consecutive titles in a row (Olympic Games, World Championship, Euro & World Championship again) ...

Finally, if we only consider a rugbystico-rugby angle, I'd say that the game we generally aim to play and have been recognised for (the famous French Flair) requires full physical/mental capacities. You need to be at 100% at least. So if we're not that well physically speaking we underperform and underachieve, giving the impression of a lack of fighting spirit. The best contrary is England. They have a reputation of a more restrictive game, less physically demanding so they can propose more consistent performances, generally always being strong (strong enough at least) on the basics. That's how Kidney got his results too. And a bit like us, Wales who could claim a lot of Welsh Flair are pretty inconsistent too.



PS: As for the "annoyance" of supporting them, well it is certainly frustrating and embarassing at times as Steffano said but we could also look at it from the perspective that we're expecting too much from our team(s) (actually Steffano last posts about some players of the French team could well illustrate that ).

iroced wrote: »

@ Steffano : Yeah I see what you mean. I just felt you were putting too much emphasis on this last game in Scotland where we played ... "strangely" I'd say.
PSA repeated during the whole week that he was afraid we could not resist the Scots intensity, the many phases of play they are capable of building for 5-6 or even more min etc... etc... and I was speechless at his comments as, without any offense to the Scots (they only beat us once in the last 10 years), it was "only" Scotland.

But I could also tell you that with roughly the same team we should be World Champion .


Looking in more detail at you criticism,

• I don't see any stand out alternative at 2? The thing with Szarzewski too is he's been in the shadow of Servat for so long... I guess he needs a bit of time to fill in the boots of a "starter". Then, I can't say how good or bad he really is as I don't watch enough SF games but I'm sure Szarzewski can do better than his display against Scotland and I kind of remember him having fairly good games in Blue under Laporte...
  
  
• And I still think you're too radical with Rougerie. I agree though that Fritz has a lot more to offer but what about his "temper"? What do you think of Mermoz? He's not having a good season with USAP but the year they got the Brennus he was excellent and he confirmed it last year.

Now do you believe me?

Rougerie: still useless, brings nothing to the game and it's his fault Ireland scored the first try.
Szaszerwski: still useless. It's half time and he lost 67% of the balls he touched and it's his faut Ireland scored the second try as it started from a turnover on him.
Trinh-Duc: doing nothing right. Still plays like a centre. Sh!te...
Poitrenaud: great game so far!