finals?
Andy Capostagno in London Rugby World Cup
Francois Pienaar and Nick Farr Jones were very insistent. “Don’t write off France,” they said. “They may be a shambles at the moment, but they have a habit of getting it right when it matters.” They didn’t say that this week, they said it three months ago and they were very insistent.
Of course, back then no one had really looked in depth at the implications of the draw. In an event as important as the World Cup it would have seemed bizarrely unlikely that one team could reach the last four without playing a nation ranked among the top eight teams in the world. But that is what has happened and even Nick Mallett called it a poor piece of planning on the part of Rugby World Cup.
France have reached the semi-finals by playing (and beating) Namibia, Canada, Fiji and Argentina. They were woeful in at least two of those matches, but then so were South Africa against Uruguay and Spain. The point is that they came through and while the coaching team of Jean-Claude Skrela and Pierre Villepreux may have lost key players to bans and injuries, may indeed be a long way from knowing what their best team is, they at least have earned a place in the last-chance saloon.
For that is what playing New Zealand has come down to. As Villepreux put it, “We’ve now got to prepare against the best team in the world. I think the players must have this game in the head more than in the legs.”
Every team which plays against New Zealand has to cope with the psychological aspect. All Black success down the decades has conferred an aura upon the men who pull on the shirt with the silver fern on the chest. They expect to win and they expect their opponents to acknowledge that fact. Many do and lose the game before they even take the field.
It is an aura that spills over into the peripheral activities of the All Blacks. They alone would dare to take a three-day holiday in the south of France in the middle of the World Cup. They alone would send the whole team to practise on a ground which, as a match venue, is technically off-limits to all but five selected kickers.
And they alone would make plans to stay in the luxurious Burnham Beeches Hotel for three extra days after Sunday’s match in direct contravention of a Rugby World Cup decision to send all four remaining teams to somewhat less plush Cardiff hotels on Monday. They alone can get away with it because they are the All Blacks and Rugby World Cup is as scared of them as most of their opponents on the field are.
But New Zealand, for all their aura, are beatable, and the one northern hemisphere side which has proved that on a reasonably regular basis is France – whether it is beating them with fists and boots as they once infamously did on French soil in the 1980s, or whether it is with sheer verve, as they did through “the try from the end of the earth” which clinched a three-Test series on New Zealand soil in 1994.
If, as now seems likely, fly-half Andrew Mehrtens does not recover from fluid on the knee in time to play on Sunday, France will have extra incentive to upset the form book. All the world knows how vital Mehrtens is to his side’s well- being, and in his absence the laboured passing of Justin Marshall will be thrown into sharper focus.
There are grave doubts about the All Black front row and about the blend of their back row. What is not in question is the finishing power of a fearsome back line, especially the wings, Jonah Lomu and Tana Umaga, and fullback Jeff Wilson, now playing the best rugby of even his exceptional career.
France have no one of that quality in their three-quarter line. They would need to resurrect Serge Blanco, Patrick Esteve and Phillipe Saint-Andre at the peak of their powers to be able to compete man on man in the backs.
But in the forwards it is a different story. Even without banned loosehead prop Christian Califano, the Tricolours have every bit as good a front row as New Zealand. There may yet be one more match of heavenly achievement left in Abdel Benazzi at lock, and while the back row does not include a host of greats, it can look after itself.
France are a team famous for expansiveness, who nevertheless know how to play a conservative game when it matters. If they can carry the ball among the forwards, tackle like demons in the backs and avoid losing possession in the tackle, they have a chance.
Just that, a chance. Not favourites, not even good odds at the bookies, just a slim chance to send New Zealand home wondering where it all went wrong. Here’s hoping.