The French invented the amuse-bouche and aperitif to prime the palate before a great feast. The Wallabies will be of similar service when they whet local appetites for the Rugby World Cup in the one-off warmup Test against host nation France on Monday.
The Stade de France clash is the fruit of a deal hatched over lunch between the RA chair, Hamish McLennan, and former French rugby boss and World Rugby vice-chair Bernard Laporte in 2021. On the menu in Saint Germaine that day was hare-in-hare-blood-gravy. But the rabbit in the headlights this weekend is Eddie Jones who needs to improve on a dismal 0-4 record since returning as head coach this year. Victory would also inject much needed belief into his youthful 33-man squad before the Wallabies’ “smash and grab” mission on rugby’s greatest prize begins on 10 September.
Ever since the bizarre press conference at Sydney airport, in which Eddie blew his stack at local media from under an Akubra hat and a maniacal grin, the pressure has been on. Sure, assistant coach Brad Davis had just quit hours before boarding the plane (he has since been replaced by Melbourne Storm incumbent Jason Ryles) but it was far from a fond farewell.
Rugby Australia has been similarly rattled this week. French newspaper Midi Olympique reported this weekend’s game was in doubt over an unresolved agreement between the French Rugby Federation and RA regarding the Wallabies’ $1.7m match fee. Thankfully the matter was resolved given it’s about what RA will pay the NRL’s Joseph Suaalii in 2025.
Then, on Sunday, RA was called out on social media by Australia’s women’s rugby players and community over funding inequity between the Wallabies and Wallaroos. Along with the observation of the six coaches on Jones’s staff compared with one part-timer on theirs, Wallaroo Georgie Friedrichs claimed “Wallabies [wives and girlfriends are] getting more funding than the Wallaroos team!”
It certainly took the gloss off what RA had trumpeted as a week of “historic reset” in the game. Given recent on-field results and off-field strife, a reset would be welcome. But the “vision” was little more than a promise to do better at listening while defining and aligning all levels of the game before the 2025 Lions tour and home World Cups for men (2027) and women (2029).
After that mess, an actual game of footy can’t come soon enough. Having riddled media on selections (“we’re playing France but we might not be playing France”), Jones set the rugby world alight by welcoming ex-All Blacks coach Steve Hansen into camp as an unpaid consultant.
“Australia are looking good,” Hansen generously surmised. “They’re a young side that are coming together and they’ve got a coach that wants them to work hard and be better. I think they’re buying into that. They’re rebuilding themselves, trying to re-establish themselves.”
Jones says he wants his side to play “a more natural style” like his old club side Randwick, the “Galloping Greens”. “Eddie seems pretty hellbent on having his own Australian style and he’s picked a young team,” Hansen said. “He’s left a lot of the senior players out, and as a result … I wouldn’t call them naive but they’re young as far as Test experience goes.”
Jones won’t be deterred. Against what is expected to be a full strength Les Bleus team, Brumbies prop Blake Schoupp and Force halfback Issak Fines-Leleiwasa are named to debut from the bench with utility Ben Donaldson also selected, and centre Lalakai Foketi and winger Suliasi Vunivalu to start in place of veterans Marika Koroibete and Samu Kerevi. Frontrower Taniela Tupou returns from rib damage for his first start of 2023.
The rugby history between Australia and France spans 95 years and 51 Tests, with Australia winning 29, France 20 and two draws. It is a fierce, close-fought, frequently violent rivalry with the six most recent Tests between the two nations decided by three points or fewer.
That decade-long run of close finishes began with a 29-26 win for France in 2014 and then a 25-23 victory for Australia in 2016, both at Stade de France, which will host the 52nd edition on Monday morning (1.45am AEST). Then came the thrilling 2021 series in Australia won 2-1 by the Wallabies after a trio of high-wire Tests decided by a single kick: 23-21, 26-28 and 33-30.
Their most recent meeting, on 5 November last year, was another epic. Against a French team on a 10-Test winning streak, Dave Rennie’s side outflanked Les Bleus in the melee of the scrum and lineout, winning 100% of both, only for ill-discipline to cost them the win. Yet, of the 23 who wore the gold jersey that day, only nine have made Jones’s World Cup squad.
One is new captain Will Skelton, whose return to form that day off the bench now has him leading Australia out against men he plays most weeks with at French Top 14 side La Rochelle. The 203cm-goliath is the face of this World Cup campaign and the French connection the Wallabies need if they’re to prepare for the challenge to come.
