Philippe Saint-André’s France are fast resembling a stereotypical England in blue

Les Bleus, once known for flair and the ability to make something out of nothing, face Wales at the weekend but now appear programmed to eliminate risk
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Paul Rees
theguardian.com, Thursday 26 February 2015 07.55 EST

France's coach Philippe Saint-André directs his players before the Six Nations match against Wales

France's head coach Philippe Saint-André directs his players in preparation for the Six Nations match against Wales. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images

LET IT FLOW

Will the real France please stand up? Or have Les Bleus stooped so low that nobody would be able to tell? A team that used to make rugby union different with, in Brian Moore’s words, its brutal beauty, has become boringly boorish. All muscle and little menace.

France play Wales in Paris on Saturday, a fixture they have not won since 2011. They have not beaten Ireland in the past four attempts and their last success over England at Twickenham in the Six Nations was in 2005. They have lost on their last two trips to Rome. Only against Scotland do they prosper.

They have yet to finish in the top half of the Six Nations in the Philippe Saint-André era and after starting with their customary victory over Scotland – although outscored on tries 1-0 – they lost in Dublin, stirring themselves only after the match appeared to be lost. They scored the only try of the game but a side that used to be known for its flair and ability to make something out of nothing through instinctive brilliance plays as if programmed to eliminate risk – stereotypical England in blue.

When Bernard Laporte took over as France’s head coach after the 1999 World Cup, he made discipline a priority. The introduction of the Heineken Cup four years before had exposed French clubs to wider scrutiny and the laissez-faire approach of referees in the domestic leagues, where violence was an expected part of matches. Long bans in Europe did not prove a deterrent.

At one point Laporte dropped the second row Fabien Pelous for an act of foul play to encourage the others and, gradually, France under him became less flammable, less volatile and more consistent: Les Bleus won four Six Nations titles under Laporte but the country he used as his model, England, ended their World Cup campaigns in 2003 and 2007 at the semi-final stage.

France lost timidly on each occasion, England without a Jonny Wilkinson, a contrast to the swashbuckling comeback in the 1999 semi-final against New Zealand at Twickenham when they played as only France then could seem to do – forwards and backs running from everywhere, looking for space rather than contact and off-loading with abandon.

That approach has not been exiled from France – Bordeaux-Bègles, for example, are not afraid to run from their own line (a club Laporte once captained) – but Saint-André, who spent his formative coaching years in the Premiership with Gloucester and Sale, is following Laporte, who succeeded him at Toulon.

France have played 34 Tests under Saint-André, winning 14, losing 18 and twice drawing with Ireland. Nine of the victories have come in matches against Scotland, Italy, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. They have beaten Argentina twice and lost twice, recorded two victories over Australia and pipped England in last year’s Six Nations. If he has been more consistent in selection this season, so has his gameplan changed little: the focal point in midfield has been the big, burly bruiser Mathieu Bastareaud rather than the mercurial Wesley Fofana, one of two likely survivors on Saturday from Saint-André’s first team in February 2012.

Wales are not unfazed by confrontation and if the old adage that you never knew what to expect from France until a match started rarely applies today, there have been mixed messages from their coaches this week about what they think lies in wait. On Monday, Shaun Edwards said he thought Les Bleus were unfairly portrayed as a one-dimensional team, citing statistics to show they off-loaded and passed more than most: it was true in their matches against Scotland and Ireland but they only made five clean breaks in total.

The Wales head coach, Warren Gatland, said the following day that there was pressure on France to play more rugby and he was happy to add to it. “They have probably been at times relatively conservative in the way they have played,” he noted. “I think they will go and express themselves a bit more and potentially throw the ball around.” That theme was taken up by the Wales captain, Sam Warburton: “I don’t think they have played much rugby but it could change against us,” he said. “We have to be prepared for a few different gameplans.”

Laporte was accused of sucking the soul out of the national side and a team that used to be known for its joie de vivre has become largely joyless to watch, although five changes from the side that lost to Ireland, four behind, indicate a change of approach. The difference, however, can only be made by the players casting off the straitjackets.

France stand alone in tier-one rugby now that the Premiership clubs and Twickenham have developed a partnership that gives the national head coach access to his players in having a volatile relationship between country and clubs. There is an agreement in place but few Top 14 owners have a reputation for diplomacy.

When Saint-André took over from Marc Lièvremont, following a World Cup campaign that went from farce to final, he said that players had to accept that the France team was the window to French rugby. They had an obligation to ensure that the image was good but where France again differs from others is that its league system is deep-rooted, stretching back to the time when France did not have an international side: the first final of what is now the Top 14 was played in 1892, 13 years before Les Bleus played their first Test match.

French rugby’s heartland is in the south, not Paris, and the club game drives the sport there. The Top 14 is financially strong and in no way reliant on the French Rugby Federation which, in a desire to boost its own turnover, is planning to build a ground in the south-west of Paris, which it would own, rather than continue to play at the Stade de France for a rental fee and no day-to-day income.

The Stade de France has not been the fortress the Parc des Princes was. There was a period after Les Bleus moved to the latter in the early 1970s when they lost a championship match at home on average every five years. Under Saint-André they have been beaten in front of their own supporters in the Six Nations ever year.

“Allez France!” was the cry at the Parc des Princes and it reverberated around the concrete stadium. It has been more a case of arrêtez in recent years, more spills than thrills.

When he recalled the wing Teddy Thomas, a player in the French mould of old, after dropping him for missing team meetings, Saint-André remarked: “He is a match-winner: you do not buy this in Tesco, you are born with it.” So why not let it flow?

CHANGE AT THE TOP IN WALES

The Welsh Rugby Union this week announced that its chief executive, Roger Lewis, who is also the CEO of the Millennium Stadium, would be standing down in October after nine years in charge. There was no media conference, only an email of a few hundred words that pointed out a list of achievements.

You would have thought, especially given the gushing reaction in some of the Welsh media to news that was overdue, that a media conference for a man who had, some said, delivered grand slams and driven down the WRU’s debt was the least he merited, an opportunity to bask in the glow of friendly questions.

Except some would have been more awkward. Such as did the chief executive jump or was he pushed? His departure was decided in January after a meeting of the board of directors when they made it clear they were looking to move in a different direction. Lewis’s time was up. It was tantamount to a vote of no confidence and the only question was when he went: before the start of the Six Nations, at the end of the tournament or through to the World Cup?

His final day will be on 31 October, when the World Cup final will be played at Twickenham, but it would be no surprise if he had not found himself on gardening leave by then. If he is still in office, he no longer has the power and influence he once wielded, the inevitable outcome of last year’s election of board members by clubs.

David Pickering, the WRU chairman throughout Lewis’s tenure, was voted out as a national representative. He was replaced by the former Wales outside-half Gareth Davies, then the chief executive of Newport Gwent Dragons, and a vacancy created the retirement of Gerald Davies, whose valedictory speech to the clubs at an annual general meeting called earlier in the year lamented the low esteem in which Wales were held throughout the rugby world, was filled by another ex-international, Anthony Buchanan.

Pickering and Lewis had a close working relationship, but when Gareth Davies was elected as chairman, armed with a mandate by the clubs who, while acknowledging the progress made by Wales since Gatland had been appointed head coach at the end of 2007, were concerned at the deteriorating state of the game in the levels below: the shop window may have looked good but the state of the stockroom demanded attention.

Davies has taken that mandate on. There was a jockeying for power initially but he stood firm as chairman, winning the battle to have Gerald Davies’s name put forward as the WRU’s recommendation for the post of chairman of the Guinness Pro12. A board that under Pickering’s chairmanship had found it difficult to stand up to Lewis found its voice.

Gareth Davies and Lewis had been on the opposite sides during a television debate at the start of last year over the state of the game in Wales, in particular the failure of the WRU to agree a partnership deal with its four regions who feared they were being shoved towards financial doom.

The regions had taken to social media to press their case, believing that most of the established media in Wales were unwilling to jeopardise their relationship with the WRU, something that led to a lack of accountability. Gareth Davies and Lewis were never going to get on with the former not just behind the regions but committed to addressing the concerns of the grassroots and building trust.

The elite side of the game has prospered under Lewis who, not unreasonably, saw the international game as the financial driver but Wales is one of the few countries in the world that can lay claim to rugby union as its national sport. One of the concerns of the regions during their long standoff with the WRU was that they wanted to be able to get involved in the game in their areas to help it and them grow but they were, to be euphemistic, discouraged.

That is changing under Gareth Davies. This week’s email announcement contained a short tribute to Lewis from him. It was said in victory. The WRU has lost a chief executive with a remarkable gift for publicity and a huge capacity for work but who was not comfortable around the table negotiating with those who held a contrary view to his. Welsh rugby will be duller without him but his legacy of a strong top and a weaker middle and bottom must not be an enduring one.

DECIDERS OF DESTINY

Two matches in the Six Nations this weekend will decide the favourites for the title and the wooden spoon. The winner of the match between Ireland and England will gain room at the top, while the loser of the meeting between Scotland and Italy at the bottom will be stuck in the basement.

The last two matches between Ireland and England have been close, cagey affairs with England winning both, by six points in the Dublin rain two years agoand by three at Twickenham in 2014, a result that did not decide the championship, which the Irish went on to win through points difference.

England have opened out this year, scoring eight tries in their two matches, while Ireland’s two both came in Rome when Italy were down to 14 men. They had a standout 2014, losing only one match and defeating Australia and South Africa in the autumn, but while their head coach, Joe Schmidt, has developed a reputation for assiduously analysing opponents and tailoring his gameplan accordingly, his side needs a new impetus.

Ireland rarely off-load, something Schmidt thinks is loaded with risk but they were hanging on against France in the last round, opponents lacking the variety, and greater discipline, of England. He is having to make do without Brian O’Driscoll this season but his side needs a hint of invention.

Ireland have only defeated France and England at home in the same championship campaign seven times since the second world war. History is against them but under Schmidt they have made their own story, even if it will probably take more than the boot of Jonathan Sexton to add another chapter.

As for Murrayfield, Scotland are looking for their first Six Nations victory under Vern Cotter having achieved what would, in any other tournament, have been bonus-point defeats. The match against Wales cost them three forwards through injury but they should have enough against Italy in an encounter that promises to be looser than the one in Dublin.