Stuart Barnes (again from behind the times pay wall)
Well, French rugby has achieved its 10-year objective. They have finally matched England in their ability to reach a World Cup final without being anything but negative in their approach.
This year’s French vintage leaves a sour taste. At least the 2007 England team found a fine forward performance to level Australia before taking advantage of their nervous French hosts.
The 2011 France team play an equally mind-numbing brand of rugby but have reached the final without having to even show much character.
Being beaten by New Zealand in the pool stage was no disgrace (it was actually the best France have played and they lost by 20 points) but the lethargic effort against Tonga was an embarrassment. Fortunate indeed were they to meet the worst England World Cup team in 24 years, although that pales into insignificance compared to their luck in being the beneficiaries of Alain Rolland’s arrogant misuse of power.
The pity of the semi-final is that we cannot describe it as a hollow victory. To the victor the spoils and all that, but France should be wary because the obsession with results over style has hindered the myopic majority who cannot see that greatness is born of lofty ambition and the pursuit of excellence. England’s awful inevitability derived from the absence of such vision and now France, a nation we once loved for their romantic swagger and shrugging indifference to the pragmatism of the Anglo-Saxon way, are a team in our yeoman image.
Europe has been deprived of its finest for next Sunday by the half-French referee whose preposterous red card for Sam Warburton ranks as the worst piece of officiating in this year’s competition. Should New Zealand win today it would be fitting for the refereeing controller Paddy O’Brien to give him the final as a thank you, because France’s presence guarantees the hosts the World Cup.
It is hard to argue that the referee was anything but the French man of the match. There were only two areas of superiority for France’s 15 against 14: their goal-kicking was superior and their lineout was truly immense. Having compared this shambling mediocrity of a team with the earnest England side of 2007, there has also to be another comparison with the victorious South African side of that tournament. The Springboks won the World Cup on the basis of an outstanding kicking game and a majestic lineout.
The absence of Rhys Priestland yesterday was a hammer blow for Wales for all sorts of reasons, not least because their goal-kicking return of one from five would surely have been improved upon. One more would have sufficed.
And that is quite some indictment of France. Morgan Parra kicked all three of his kicks with utter insouciance. There has been no better kicker through the tournament. Again, there are echoes of Percy Montgomery, whose dead-ball striking was flawless.
The French had the advantage of an extra man and a different class of kicker but still they needed a lineout that towered over Wales. It is the best lineout in this competition — as was the Springboks’ version four years ago.
France won their own ball but it was the carnage wreaked on Welsh possession that was decisive. Julien Bonnaire was awarded man of the match but the dominance of Lionel Nallet and his hulking mate Pascal Pape, the thievery at the front and middle of the lineout, was the crucial edge that allowed an otherwise clueless team to hang on without threatening the Welsh try line.
So good was the lineout that France downgraded their game to endless kicks. Instead of testing the one-man-down Welsh defence, they were content to boot the ball into touch and win the lineout, be it on their own ball or Welsh ball.
The history books will show the tactic as winning rugby, but how it scarred the soul. France have deserted their rugby heritage and adopted a dimwitted pragmatism that will surely not ultimately triumph.
France are not a team blessed with the kaleidoscopic talent of either Australia or New Zealand, but they have far more at their disposal than they have the guts to reveal.
The rumour sweeping New Zealand is that the French players have effected a rugby revolution and taken over the reins of command from Marc Lièvremont. They certainly played like a bunch of blokes without any vision from on high.
Limited and unlovable, France have reached a World Cup final, but so what? Reaching a final isn’t quite the achievement it unthinkingly appears.
Two pool defeats and scrambled late flurries to flatter them against Japan and Canada have been followed by victory against an awful England team and a Welsh side who would have beaten them soundly had it not been for the mugging handed out by the referee.
Winning a Six Nations is tougher than making your way to a World Cup final, given France’s favoured route and fortunate assistance. They don’t deserve to be in the showpiece. Let’s hope the winners of today’s semi-final will give them a beating, for the sake of rugby now and the sake of France in the long term.
