Time and again this week, Steve Borthwick has warned of the dangers of France’s kicking game. He is not the type to engage in mind games so rather than see this as an attempt to bait France into avoiding putting boot to ball it’s a safe bet he is anticipating an aerial bombardment.
Not the type as seen with Wales, who inexplicably did not deviate from a gameplan centred around contestable kicks despite Freddie Steward’s authority under them, but long, deep kicks, inviting England to either return fire or to carry the ball back.
Borthwick is correct to point out that France won the grand slam last year by kicking further than anybody else and though they do not top the chart this campaign (England do) there is a suspicion that, so far, Les Bleus have been more willing to experiment in different facets of their game.
Seeking a first Six Nations win at Twickenham since 2005, however, France are expected to bring their A game on Saturday. Borthwick certainly thinks so and perhaps it is telling that Melvyn Jaminet – who possesses a cannon of a right boot – is back on the bench. Thomas Ramos, Romain Ntamack and Antoine Dupont do not quite have the distance that Jaminet does so his recall to the France 23 feels significant, albeit precipitated by Matthieu Jalibert’s injury.
France won the grand slam last year by not only kicking the most but by carrying for the least metres of the six teams. The point being that they are happy to kick long and either win the kicking battle or back themselves to turn their opponents over in their half. The fact that almost all of their 17 tries in last year’s championship were scored within five phases backs up the idea that they are a team who prey on their opponents’ mistakes.
“These guys kick the ball a long way and try to pin you back as far as they can, into your own 22,” said Borthwick. “They are trying to force you into a mistake or to kick the ball loosely. As soon as you do make a mistake, the power of their forward pack comes into play and the speed of their ball movement comes into play.”
Borthwick points to how France have been honing their kicking game for the last three and half years. Certainly it was evidently working in their first match after the 2019 World Cup – against England in Paris – when Anthony Bouthier memorably boomed the ball from near his own goal line to deep into the opposing 22.
It has also coincided with the appointment of the South African Vlok Cilliers as kicking coach and there is a cannyness to it as well, as demonstrated by the manner in which they exploit a loophole in the lawbook to impressive effect. The law states that a player – in this instance let’s say Dupont, as in practice it tends to be him – becomes onside when the ball carrier has advanced five metres.
Provided Dupont is not within 10 metres of where the ball lands, he can be active once the opposing player has advanced those five metres. So while it can look like Dupont is massively offside, he is in fact perfectly legal.
France put the ploy to use against England last year – Dupont was actually penalised by the referee Jaco Peyper for not being the full 10 metres away – but it would be no surprise to see the scrum-half in a similar position on Saturday, bearing down on Steward in the backfield.
“[France] have built a long kicking game that is the most advanced of any team in international rugby right now and have been working on that for three years,” Borthwick said. “They’ve built their game off the back of a strong kicking game. Nobody in the game kicks longer than they do. They’ve had three and a half years of developing [their kicking game].”
Steward, then, is in for a different kind of afternoon to that which he faced in Cardiff. A year ago Eddie Jones deployed Ellis Genge in the backfield – one of his more hair-brained schemes that was not without success in the sense that the loosehead prop made a staggering amount of metres and plenty of dents in the France defence, less so because his scrummaging was affected as a result. It is hard to see Borthwick coming up with a similar ploy, meaning Steward can expect to be kept busy.
“The biggest thing will be trying to work out what they are trying to impose on us,” he said. “Whether they are going to try and tire us out with a kicking plan, whether they’ll kick off the field and try and use the set-piece. Once we figure that out, as quickly as possible we’ll employ whatever counter to that we have been working on in the week.”
