Last week the France coach, Fabien Galthié, invited a special guest to address his squad before their trip to Cardiff. And so, into this room of brawny, outsized men steps the author and philosopher Charles Pépin, who proceeds to pepper the players with gnomic rhetorical questions. “What is a beautiful team?” he asks. “What is a real team? Is it ultimately nothing more mysterious than a sum of talents? Or is it something more?”
It’s interesting, by way of contrast, to speculate on who might conceivably deliver an equivalent lecture to the England camp. You may remember that a few years ago, the guest speaker invited by Eddie Jones to address his team ahead of the World Cup was the former Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane. And perhaps there is a certain cultural divide at work here. In France, a country that has always had a healthy esteem for public intellectuals, it is sport that can learn lessons from wider society. The very opposite is true in this country: here sporting currency possesses its own insoluble and universal mystique, as evidenced by the fact that one of our most celebrated popular philosophers is a guy who used to play table tennis.
But then in many ways this is also a trait specific to Galthié himself: a coach who for better or worse has always sought to challenge his players, to provoke them, to rip them out of their comfort zone and force them to confront new problems. Before their grand slam showdown in Paris on Saturday night, there has been a good deal of talk about how a young French team will cope with this entirely new scenario: a potential first clean sweep since 2010, the sort of pressure and stress that can force players to crack.
Yet in another sense France have spent the last two years in a state of high stress because that is simply the nature of playing under Galthié: a restless, ruthless and divisive coach whose perfectionism, according to those who have played under him, verges on obsession. At half-time against Wales last week, his dissatisfaction was palpable, despite his side’s 10-9 lead. “Twice they scored three points from opportunities that you gave to them,” he railed bitterly in the Cardiff dressing room, directly addressing No 8 Grégory Aldritt and singling him out for blame in front of his teammates. In contrast, it is usually the other coaches and senior players who take on the responsibility of delivering more uplifting, positive messages.
At times like this, one is reminded of the many criticisms of Galthié that have accumulated over the course of his career, often in regard to his man-management skills: a blunt, brusque manner high on censure and low on sentiment. “Humanely, you are worthless,” the former Stade Francais wing Raphaël Poulain once told him. “You shouldn’t be allowed to coach. You rip up your players like a dog feeding on scraps of meat.” This extends to Galthié’s relationship with the media. “There are no Toulousains in the French team,” he snapped on Thursday at a reporter who pointed out that there were nine Toulouse players in his starting XV. “Or Bordelais, Clermontois or Parisians. This is our French team.”
Yet, thus far, all the signs are that the Galthié method is enjoying remarkable success. A team stuffed with talent and secure in its own supremacy has responded in electrifying fashion, building on its progress last autumn and storming to the verge of a grand slam. Perhaps the most impressive element of this French side is its lack of discernible weaknesses: outstanding carriers in the pack, matchwinners all over the backline, a strong kicking game and an ever-present running threat.
International rugby at the highest level is as much a game of eliminating flaws as accentuating strengths, and it is in this respect that Galthié has left his deepest imprint. Such is the assurance of this French side that you occasionally get the impression their biggest fear is not the opposition but their own complacency. If everyone does their jobs, they win.
The contrast with England here is stark, and particularly with Jones, a coach who seems to revel in playing up his team’s limitations, hedging their chances, toying with expectations, even bizarrely suggesting that this game is simply an acclimatisation exercise for the next World Cup.
“Six weeks together, we don’t fuck it up now,” François Cros urged his teammates in Cardiff last week, and we can expect a similar attitude against the English, where the odds will be loaded in their favour. If France do manage to keep their heads and bring their A-game on a clear and crisp Paris night, it is England who will be facing the deep and meaningful questions.
