JeremyGuscott had the following to say about France, and for the first time in my life, I completely agree with him.
I sat in the Stade de France during the 30-10 win over Italy two weeks ago and I was gobsmacked at France's tactics. It was a case of 'let the forwards stick it up their jumpers and try to bully and smash their way through'. It was lacklustre and unimaginative in every single way.
The French attacking line was just so flat against Italy and so laboured as they lost 27-6 to Wales. So laboured, in fact, that the couple of scoring opportunities they had, they couldn't finish.
When Mathieu Bastareaud went through George North and got to within two yards of the Welsh try-line, he could have slipped the ball but didn't. When he finally got the ball to Hugo Bonneval, he couldn't take the catch.
Ewis, this is the main reason why you are met with resentment when you talk about England playing "muscle-ball". It's because in the current climate those descriptions are more applicable to France than England.
For me, the occasional individual brilliance in counter attacking and broken play is saving French blushes and covering up for the really unimaginative attacking game. In structured attacking play, France look clueless.
Above, you've said that France have already had their 80min fart of a game, and somewhere else you said you were satisfied with France on the whole. I don't see how you can think that. France have been dire for the vast majority of the tournament and it was extremely predictable that they would lose in Paris.
You're confusing many things. Let me clear out the points:
- I've never said France looked great in the first two games. I said I loved the tries a) we scored to beat England (one we couldn't have last year) and b) against Italy. We're impressive off broken play, although that's basically all we can manage atm because we're a bunch of highly talented mercenaries in a team with a terrible, terrible coaching staff and almost no gameplan/consistency/common culture.
- We beat England while still "playing bad". England are really a good team atm, kept saying this all year (2014) long. They're well established, young and hungry, consistent, good players, a fantastic coach. You don't beat that England side by being miserable, and though France fell asleep during the 30th-to-70th minute, our auto-pilot was good enough and added to our game vs Italy, it was *RELATIVELY* satisfying to watch, all the while keeping in mind I wanted to see a lot of improvement to come with each game.
- France playing mediocre Rugby, per se, doesn't change anything to the fact England play muscle ball. It's like you're all ashamed of that label although it's as limpid as sea water at some Mauritian resort. English fans take
great offense to that each time and as I was 'challenged' to describe what England do on some thread recently, I laid it down and
NOBODY had anything to say about it. No one contested it.
It's like this dirty little secret the English have that they don't want to see the reality as it is. I'm admitting France are a bunch of mercenaries with a shhit coach and little imagination, but that doesn't change the fact that England are forward-based with strong backs who break tackles and add to the high work rate, force-led assault that is the English attack.
And France aren't "clueless" in structured attacking play. That's exactly what they used to beat England at the last second, clutch and structured, precision, everything. And some other tries we
didn't score were off fine movements with creativity, but we clearly still lack finishing.
how come that every time morgan parra returns for france hes always up against scotland first im sure it was the same 2 years ago
It's a world wide conspiracy. We hoped nobody would notice....but you..........you.............
you just had to open that big, wide trap of yours, didn't you Scotty boy ?....
