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French Six Nations Grand Slam?

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Jethro Tah

Jethro Tah

Bob Loudon (25)
Les Bleus remain favourites to complete a Six Nations Grand Slam on Saturday night. In the unlikely event that they lose against England and finish on equal points with the Irish the crown should still go to France on for and against. The French have played an exciting brand of rugby and deserve to take the grand slam after good wins against the Welsh and the Irish.

An unchanged squad from their resounding win over Italy has been announced and comprises:

Forwards (13): Nicolas Mas (Perpignan), Thomas Domingo (Clermont)
Jean-Baptiste Poux (Stade Toulousain), Clément Baïocco (Racing-Métro), William Servat (Stade Toulousain), Dimitri Szarzewski (Stade Français), Lionel Nallet (Racing-Métro), Julien Pierre (Clermont), Sébastien Chabal (Racing-Métro), Thierry Dusautoir (Stade Toulousain, cap.), Julien Bonnaire (Clermont), Alexandre Lapandry (Clermont), Imanol Harinordoquy (Biarritz)

Backs (10): Morgan Parra (Clermont), Francois Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), Dimitri Yachvili (Biarritz), Yannick Jauzion (Stade Toulousain), Mathieu Bastareaud (Stade Francais), David Marty (Perpignan), Julien Malzieu (Clermont) Alexis Palisson (Brive), Clement Poitrenaud (Stade Toulousain), Marc Andreu (Castres)

The England squad – don’t care!

I won’t pretend to be an expert on the French team, or Six Nations Rugby for that matter. To be honest, if you asked me who was in the squad I could only name four players off the top of my head and that would be pin-up boy Szarzewski, caveman Chabel, my favourite French player Trinh-Duc and all-black pretender Bastareaud. Based on form they should win and comfortably. As an aussie, however, more importantly for me will be a win against the poms. I still have recurring nightmares about THAT game in Marseilles.

I will be at the game (as I have managed to snag an invite to a corporate box :thumb) so does anybody want a report back on any particular player?

Cheers,
 
DPK

DPK

Peter Sullivan (51)
Trinh-Duc! Also my fav French player. Also, can you get some phonetics on the correct pronunciation of his name? Its an east meets west meets us dilemma.
 
Jethro Tah

Jethro Tah

Bob Loudon (25)
Trinh-Duc is pronounced Trin Dook (i.e. rhymes with book or how a pom would say duck). In french you roll the 'r' sound as though you are spitting up a big glob of phlegm.
Wiki tells me he has Italian heritage too.
 
Lee Grant

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
His grandfather is Vietnamese IIRR. Good player when in form and he has been in the form of his life this season.

France should beat England on form as the Poms have been like caricatures of themselves. They've been picking a few more expansive players in their 22's like Foden and Tait recently but attacking with ball in hand for them is like a cow trying to play the piano.

Latest news is that Jonny Wilkinson has been dropped to the bench for Toby Flood who is not as sound but more dynamic. Oz fans may remember how he sparked the backline when he came off the bench against Oz on the 2008 EOYT.

Ball runner Foden will start at fullback as will his club mate Ashton on the wing. Ashton has league pedigree in his veins. These two feed off each other a lot for their club with Ashton getting most of the tries; so watch this space. The Saints are one of the few GP clubs that are enjoyable to watch week in, week out, and much of it is due to those two.

Tindall's return in the midfield won't do a lot for the Pom attack but the big Fench centre Bastareaud is in good form since coming back from suspension and Tindall will wear the target. Coach Johnson wouldn't have been game to have Tait defending against him and neither would I.


England:
15 Ben Foden (Northampton),
14 Mark Cueto (Sale Sharks),
13 Mike Tindall (Gloucester),
12 Riki Flutey (Brive),
11 Chris Ashton (Northampton),
10 Toby Flood (Leicester),
9 Danny Care (Harlequins),
8 Nick Easter (Harlequins),
7 Lewis Moody (Leicester),
6 Joe Worsley (Wasps),
5 Steve Borthwick (Saracens, capt),
4 Simon Shaw (Wasps),
3 Dan Cole (Leicester),
2 Dylan Hartley (Northampton),
1 Tim Payne (Wasps).

Replacements: 16 Steve Thompson (Brive), 17 David Wilson (Bath), 18 Louis Deacon (Leicester), 19 James Haskell (Stade Francais), 20 Ben Youngs (Leicester), 21 Jonny Wilkinson (Toulon), 22 Mathew Tait (Sale Sharks).


Paris Tah

We get 6N here in Oz now so those who get ESPN won't need you to watch out for us so much. But I'd like your opinion on the refereeing. Bryce Lawrence is the ref and I'd like to know your opinion on how he observes the written law.

Craig Joubert had Ireland v Wales and refereed it much like a Super 14 match, insisting on tacklers releasing the tackled player immediately as the first item in the tackle, for the whole game. The players were a bit puzzled at first but they responded and the commentators were glowing in their praise for his consistency. Marius Joubert had Scotland v England and he was a mixed bag, but he always is.

I'd like to know if any of the people in the private box notice a difference if Lawrence referees as Joubert did, and what they think about it.
 
C

chief

Guest
Jonker has always been an interesting referee. I think it was a big mistake, enforcing these new rulings in a tournament that hasn't done so. Joubert really took the cake in the Ireland match. My personal favourite Bryce 'clueless' Lawrence has the final game I hate to think what type of a game he will produce and how he will enforce come ruck time. I saw one of his games a few weeks ago in Super 14 he produced a few cards for ruck infringements, so I'd hope for both England and France's sake that they play on the right side of Lawrence. Typically a lot of teams under Lawrence have been forced to lay off the ruck, and under commit, and not even make it a contest, because of how he enforces it. Will certainly be interesting.

Jonathan Kaplan and Wayne Barnes have the last matches of the tournament. Surely Barnes will enforce the ruck different to what the SH referees have done so.

Iteresting to see Wilkinson has been dropped as well, he has been underperforming. If England don't win this match, I think we will see a few people have their contracts terminated. Martin Johnson for one, I think has been out of his depth from day one.
 
Thomond78

Thomond78

Colin Windon (37)
Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is going fucking spare over the way that the new tackle ruling has been brought in.

They were told on the Thursday before the match that was how it would be done. The IRB have gone bush to make sure they can't be contacted. Now, to their credit, DK et al have pointedly exempted Joubert from criticism, saying he reffed it as he said he would; but changing something that crucial, mid-tournament, mid bloody 6N, on two days notice?

FFS. That's just a bad joke.

Le Grand Chelem has been nailed on since it was announced Wayne Barnes was reffing us playing France in Paris. And so it's proven. ;)
 
Lee Grant

Lee Grant

John Eales (66)
Agree that it was dumb to get players to play to the laws how they are written - or at least some of them - in mid stream, but I was taken by the attitude of the players. It was like they were in a bar in the wild west and a new sheriff strolled in and told everybody they had to behave themselves.

If elite NH players can respond to the initiative as most SH players have in the S14, there is hope that it will work globally. As the incidence of good ball increases by the death of, or at least the injury to, ball killing, we should see that defences can't realign as quickly as before. And as it is with the S14, as I observe it with old eyes, attackers will see value in retaining the pill and not hoisting it.

Naysayers will warn about the return of Brumby ball if attackers are favoured by strict observance of the tackle law but the law introduced to counter B Ball is still in place - as is the May 09 ruling.

- The first enables the tackler to stay on the "wrong" side of the tackle
- The second enables players to keep their hands in after the ruck has formed if they had hands on the ball before it formed.

Another bit of naysaying will be that attackers are not recognised enough as offenders of the tackle law. We saw that in the first few rounds of the Super14 as too many players supporting ball runners were allowed to leave feet. That seems to have been addressed in the main, which is good because it is just as bad for the fabric of our game as ball killing by defenders is.

As always we have to watch out for Danie Craven's warning about the unintended consequences of law changes, but things are looking promising as we speak.

This is a 6N thread? Excuuuuse me.
 
Thomond78

Thomond78

Colin Windon (37)
Thing is, Lee, almost everyone - and this includes DK, and Oom Gert, and Gaff - is saying the idea may well be a good one, so it's not like they're against the ruling per se.

But telling them the Thursday before the game, when there'd been a two-week gap from the last 6N game that could have been used to acclimatise and which acclimatisation would, crucially, have led to a better game with fewer penalties - that's just incompetence on the part of the IRB, pure and simple.
 
C

chief

Guest
Thomond78 said:
Thing is, Lee, almost everyone - and this includes DK, and Oom Gert, and Gaff - is saying the idea may well be a good one, so it's not like they're against the ruling per se.

But telling them the Thursday before the game, when there'd been a two-week gap from the last 6N game that could have been used to acclimatise and which acclimatisation would, crucially, have led to a better game with fewer penalties - that's just incompetence on the part of the IRB, pure and simple.
Click to expand...

For a competition which has been playing for 4 weeks already. And a competition which uses mainly NH refs, then it's just plain idiocy, Paddy O'Brien was the one that authorized it, surely someone like him, would have had a lot more common sense.
 
M

macg101

Guest
not a huge fan of high scoring games, keep it tight and intense... some rediculous scores coming out of the S14 this season :angryfire:

They really can p*** off with these rule emphasis changes in the middle of tournaments. I dont like this non contesting emphasis being thrown into the mix.. sound quite like rugger league, the one sport in the world that I would not take a pay check to watch!
 
D

djoudy68

Guest
:)Hello , I'm french , I'm new on this forum. I love the australian rugby , but I don't speak english very well.
I think that the french team will win the match vs the england because we have an excellent team.

If you have questions , I answer with joy. :)
 
DPK

DPK

Peter Sullivan (51)
djoudy68 said:
:)Hello , I'm french , I'm new on this forum. I love the australian rugby , but I don't speak english very well.
I think that the french team will win the match vs the england because we have an excellent team.

If you have questions , I answer with joy. :)
Click to expand...

dj68, how good is Yann David? I saw him briefly in the France vs Samoa game and he looked good, young though.
 
James Buchanan

James Buchanan

Trevor Allan (34)
macg101 said:
not a huge fan of high scoring games, keep it tight and intense... some rediculous scores coming out of the S14 this season :angryfire:

They really can p*** off with these rule emphasis changes in the middle of tournaments. I dont like this non contesting emphasis being thrown into the mix.. sound quite like rugger league, the one sport in the world that I would not take a pay check to watch!
Click to expand...

Sounds like you've been reading some of the nonsense that's been thrown around by the uninformed UK media.

Especially the dross about how it makes it more like rugby league and it being uncontested. For your edification, the ball is still contested heavily in the super 14, its just not done by the tackler at every opportunity. Generally now its done when the ball runner is isolated without support or by counter rucking the crap out of the other team if they haven't committed enough to the breakdown. You know, how rugby is supposed to be played.

Perhaps you should stop reading the times, because quite honestly they don't know crap, and start investigating matters for yourself.
 
D

djoudy68

Guest
DPK:

I love Yann David , he play at Toulouse and he has 22 years. He plays usually outside-centre sometimes inside-centre.He is the great hope at this position in the team of France.
He is very powerfull and very good at defense. He has a great penetrating power allowing it to pierce the opponent's defensive curtain.

But there is competition for this position in France : bastareaud (the best for me) , Marty , Fritz...
 
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