France’s selection of eight uncapped players among a team of unknowns for the first Test against New Zealand today highlights again a failure in rugby union to develop an integrated international calendar.
France coach Fabien Galthie has taken an understrength squad to New Zealand for the three-Test series, leaving at home many of his leading players who have been involved in the latter rounds of the Top 14 club competition.
While New Zealand Rugby and All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson have been diplomatic about the makeup of the France squad, the decision to send a weakened group to New Zealand has been more widely interpreted as arrogant and disrespectful.
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Despite years of work toward an integrated global calendar, World Rugby has continued to prioritize northern hemisphere club competitions ahead of the July Test window.
Galthie has insisted he has no other choice than to pick players who are rested. Yet when southern hemisphere teams tour Britain and Europe in November, they routinely take full-strength teams and players who have been in training for up to 10 months.
“We don’t have a choice other than picking players who have finished their seasons,” Galthie said. “It’s an opportunity for us to work with the best players available. The constraints of the Six Nations, the November Tests, the Top 14 and the European Cup leave us with no other choice for the summer tour.”
Photo: AFP
Galthie said criticism of the decision to bring a team of obscure club players to New Zealand is misplaced.
“You have to be informative and try to explain the obligations which are linked to our season schedule,” he said. “I understand very well that, on the international circuit, people don’t understand why the team that went undefeated in November and won the [Six Nations] tournament isn’t there.”
The French club season has long been a bugbear that World Rugby has not addressed. The All Blacks will gain little or nothing from playing a team of players so little known that routine analysis of their play has been difficult.
Photo: AFP
This season is expected to be a major challenge for Robertson, who lost four Tests in his first season in charge and is under pressure to produce better results. It is unlikely the coming series will reveal much about how the All Blacks coach has grown since last year, unless France prove surprisingly competitive.
Robertson has said that he lacked self-confidence in his first year in charge, resulting in a conservative approach to selection and tactics. His choice of four new caps for today’s game and his pledge to play a more attacking game points to a more confident approach.
“We want to play fast,” Robertson said. “We think the game is in a great place for us — quick scrums, quick lineouts, quick taps. Our skill set trends to us playing fast and creating so that’s what we’ll push all week.”
Robertson said France would be “quite free ... there is not too much weight on their shoulders and respect so they can be dangerous.”
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