There's plenty of comment this morning over the rather unusual selections by French rugby coach Marc Lievremont for Saturday night's clash with New Zealnd in Auckland. But is it surprising that the French have a less-than-full-strength side for this Pool A clash? Not since Saturday night it's not.
Ireland's upset win over Australia has potentially turned RWC 2011 into a classic Northern versus Southern Hemisphere contest. Barring any more upsets in pool play, there will be four teams from the north on one side of the draw, and four teams from the south on the other. It's looking highly likely that RWC's two most winning teams, South Africa and Australia (how it grates to type that!) will meet in the quarter-finals.
We certainly don't approve of teams throwing matches. But now that the Wallabies are likely to miss the side of the draw that the French would be consigned to if they lost to New Zealand on Saturday, we can understand why Lievremont might want to keep his powder dry until the knock-out phase. He would certainly prefer his chances of beating the likes of England, Ireland and Wales on the way to another RWC final than facing the likes of South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
So let's look at Lievremont's quirky selections as a back-handed compliment to the quality of southern hemisphere rugby, then let's hope the All Blacks really deal to Lievremont's men on Saturday night, and again in October should the two teams happen to meet in a match that really matters.
7 comments:
You have pretty much hit the nail on the head.
Whilst it is hard to consider that a team would be named to more or less loose to the AB's, in an odd way I can see this as being a strategic move by the French...
In the end it is all about winning the cup. Style and the how's etc are not applicable. Hard for me to type that too.
Interesting result in the Italy game last night, not so much the result, but the score...
To answer your question - Smart move.
I'll make a few serious points and one cheeky one:
1) Whatever the result of this match, France will likely face either England or Argentina, and both those fixtures have the look of a war up front, so protecting key forwards is very sensible.
2) Trinh-duc has been pretty average so far, Parra's kicking against Canada was very good so probably merits selection on that basis.
3) The French have had a lot of success in the past with scrum and fly-halves interchanging and seem to have picked a pairing that can do that.
4) Perhaps Lievremont thinks his best chance of a win is a complacent AB's setup thinking they already have in in the bag, again.
This is the downside of RWC which has become the MMP of rugby.
It has also helped destroy test match rugby in between, where full strength teams are seldom on the park.
Rugby has been less enjoyable probably since the start of the professional era.
"Rugby has been less enjoyable probably since the start of the professional era."
I take it you didn't watch last night's match from Nelson then?
No, James, I didn't.
France typically have one good game per tournament; no point in having it in this meaningless match.
Not good news for the All Blacks though. A massively under-rated aspect of the 2007 demise was the fact NZ had a ridiculously easy pool; wins over Scotland and Italy “B”, Romania and Portugal
Interesting point LB; we should be grateful that the Tongan forwards gave them a good workout. Hopefully the game against Canada too will be reasonably physical, although the depth of the lumberjacks might be tested by then.
But it's not the ideal preparation; I'll grant you that.
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