[2013 EOYT] France

[Tony Manx]

Not for the end of this season but Rory Kockett is eligible for France next year and what chance they use Parra at 10 and Rory at 9?

 

[Big Ewis]

I dunno but the man has played in SA before...it would be totally shyt if we added him, that's just cheating from what I know of him now.
I dunno about Parra at 10...
We should really focus on Lopez and Tales for now.

 

[Big Ewis]

(not a double post):
just a reminder to any enthusiastic mind, Camille Lopez and Bordeaux's demolition of Toulon last year:

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

right...lol, now it makes sense.
Well we won't lose all 3, that's for sure. But will we beat any of NZ or SA, not so sure....we may very well come close both times but simply, just, NOT win.

I mean we're still a highly experimental int'l side. We haven't had a stable lineup since the World Cup. But if all goes according to what I'd imagine, I'd predict 2 of 3.

We haven't played the Boers since 2010, so this is a long time coming, will be a very tasty, 'exotic' match-up....












and I hope we beat the crap out of them : p

Never thought I'd ever see us called ... 'exotic'!! As for the bottom line, well, lets just wait and see.

I dunno but the man has played in SA before...it would be totally shyt if we added him, that's just cheating from what I know of him now.
I dunno about Parra at 10...
We should really focus on Lopez and Tales for now.

So have Le Roux, Kotze and Claassen, who else?. What are you getting at? And what's up with feeding off of SA's scraps? I expect more from France. And in saying that Vive le Framce and beat the AIG's into a bloody, crappy, pulpy pink-red ruin with tiny bits of bone and black rags spread throughout and scattered across the field of battle, yes, BATTLE! The cock to blind and horribly rape the kiwi! This thread so far has been very informative to a man with a newly found fondness in French rugby, thank you, all for the generous contributions.

 

[ZeFrenchy]

Not for the end of this season but Rory Kockett is eligible for France next year and what chance they use Parra at 10 and Rory at 9?

I don't see Kockott having a career for France. He's too controversial of a player, and he plays a position where we have good "home-grown" options. He has said that he woul play for France if he doesn't get into the Springboks... I know that most (if not all) foreign players who have playe for France had the same set of mind, though they were a lot less vocal about it.
I'd rather we keep Parra, Machenaud and Doussain and that we try Paillague, or wait for Radoslavjevic, or if we really need someone we call Dupuy or Tillous-Borde back.

 

[Big Ewis]

Never thought I'd ever see us called ... 'exotic'!! As for the bottom line, well, lets just wait and see.



So have Le Roux, Kotze and Claassen, who else?. What are you getting at? And what's up with feeding off of SA's scraps? I expect more from France. And in saying that Vive le Framce and beat the AIG's into a bloody, crappy, pulpy pink-red ruin with tiny bits of bone and black rags spread throughout and scattered across the field of battle, yes, BATTLE! The cock to blind and horribly rape the kiwi! This thread so far has been very informative to a man with a newly found fondness in French rugby, thank you, all for the generous contributions.

"exotic" originally doesn't mean what you may think.
and glad to see you're fulfilling your forum duties as my bit...errr, my new brother in arms.
Well guys like Claassen at least played in France when they were very young and had a very short start of a career in SA. Like Nakaitaci is obviously a Fidjian and all, but he started playing pro when he was super young and in a French club, so I'm good with that.

But Kockott has a bunch of caps and an entire career behind him in S.A., so it's just not fair.
We shouldn't be able to poach players just because they play in our Top 14 league, how should that be an advantage for our XV de France I mean ? (if not for cases like Noa Nakaitaci)

And don't say things like "I expect more from France" man, sports and politics are all about winning, no matter the means, it's very Machiavelism itself. If a guy's eligible and he's good, a country will take him. Simple as that, honor or loyalty or wtvr have no role to play here...

I don't want Kockott, I really really hope they don't take him. Can you imagine - let's just imagine - if France makes it in the Final in two years and Kockott makes all his kicks or even scores a try, everybody for the remainder of history will say France won illegitimately. Everybody will put a big asterisk on our first ***le ever.
He's a great player, and I don't know why SA won't pick him, he clearly has the level and is unique in his own way and does a number of things, a rare talent for a 9. And he's witty and cunning, very opportunistic. Also, he can get under guys' skin and into their heads, and seems to be a great positive element psychologically for his troops: congratulates his pack or other players often, works the refs, is highly enthusiastic generally on the field...and he backs down from no one (not even Bakkies ! )
BUT - HE AIN'T FRENCH !! PLEAAAAASE FFR, DON'T PICK EM !!
There craziest thing is, it's not like we're desperate for someone at the position !! But nobody is on his level either save Parra...Machenaud isn't, and Doussain I don't think so.

 

[wertas]

I dunno but the man has played in SA before...it would be totally shyt if we added him, that's just cheating from what I know of him now.
I dunno about Parra at 10...
We should really focus on Lopez and Tales for now.

Dear Big Ewis,

Have you watched Rugby World Cup in 2011? E.g. group match agains New Zealand or final? Could you please remind us who was starting fly-half?

Regards



Being serious, to be honest, I actually liked Parra at 10. Don't know why, but playmaker in France seems to be 9 not 10 and for French scrum-half it is quite easy to move to fly-half. Ellisalde, Michalak, also, Parra played fly-half internationally. Suprisingly Parra has very good defence and he is quite slim, but has not missed or missed only one or two tackles while played agains All Blacks and in his channel were Nonu & SBW. However, still he should be starting scrum-half for France, but PSA sometimes thinks differently.

 

[Big Ewis]

Dear Big Ewis,

Have you watched Rugby World Cup in 2011? E.g. group match agains New Zealand or final? Could you please remind us who was starting fly-half?

Regards

yeh, after some of the pool matches he played 10 til the end of the Cup I believe it's true...but it's not his natural position, and he makes for such a good SH and he's pretty consistent...
yeh he looks small for some reason but he's got some weight on him and he's 1m80 at least, that's not short either...he just looks tiny on the screen. His defense is better than it should be for his frame.

Yeh so bottom line for me:
Parra at 9, absolutely no need whatsoever to move him at 10, we've got two promising and already tested prospects there, at least. And no Kockott. Reason: he is a South African.
At least if he had a French sounding name like many do....BUT NOT EVEN THAT !!!

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I predict that the French team will have the Hooker at 10, flanker at 9, scrumhalf as hooker, the props on the wings and when asked why they are going for such strange decisions, the coach will shrug his shoulders, stick out his bottom lip and go "eurgh."

 

[Big Ewis]

Anybody high on Pélissié yet right now ?

Here's that try from last week:



I'd much rather him than Doussain personally, and he's just about hitting that maturity mark in his career.

EDIT:
in fact a lot of guys would love to see him along with Trinh-Duc for the XV de France. They're both playing fantastic, and I've always been a pro-TrinhDuc. Plus, it's great to have a 9 and 10 from the same club...
others seem convinced our future is Pélissié+Lopez. That would attack like hell, and that's what I LOVE at half-back. Parra is a fantastic SH, handles all positional duties perfectly, but he's not an attack-minded number 9, the "Little Captain"...

And Tales is still right there, there's no way he doesn't belong in the discussion.

 

[Big Ewis]

(not a double post)

I also like this guy a lot on the wing for us, from Castres, here are some quick highlights from just one match:


I didn't notice him a lot before, but this afternoon he really caught my attention with a MONSTER fend off on Médard. This dude's pretty brutal, still fairly young, and he's 1m88 for 102kg. A fine specimen for a winger, will be watching him a lot more closely...his fends are quite something.

And since I'm talking about that Toulouse Castres match earlier today: Camara had a fantastic individual try. He's ultra young at 19yo, but maybe somewhat of a special physical prototype for a flanker.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Jeesh, I have no clue who these 'fringe' players are. Not surprised as I can only manage so many top 14 games so a lot of teams I don't even see 1 game of throughout the year. I'll have to try and remedy that but how without losing my income or wife?

 

[Big Ewis]

Jeesh, I have no clue who these 'fringe' players are. Not surprised as I can only manage so many top 14 games so a lot of teams I don't even see 1 game of throughout the year. I'll have to try and remedy that but how without losing my income or wife?

that's your problem man, you knew the life-threatening implications of our deal before you agreed to it.
No, I'm (only half) kidding of course...

Watch Montpellier, Toulouse, Clermont and Castres basically, that's where most (well, 'all') of the French talent is at....with USAP (Perpignan) too on occasion.
Toulon, you already know all the guys, and it ain't super pretty...

The big question right now in Top 14 circles about the EDF (Equipe De France)/ national team is the 9 and 10 positions:
look out for Pélissié at 9 for MP, he's currently on fire and looks fantastic as a pair with TrinhDuc at 10.
Watch a bit of Parra in Clermont and judge whether he still deserves his spot on les bleus. A majority of fans would actually like Kockott on the EDF.
And then watch some Castres for Remi Tales at 10. Camille Lopez is "the other prospect" right now at 10, and he plays for Perpignan, a pretty nice team as well.

 

[gaston le gaff]

that's your problem man, you knew the life-threatening implications of our deal before you agreed to it.
No, I'm (only half) kidding of course...

Watch Montpellier, Toulouse, Clermont and Castres basically, that's where most (well, 'all') of the French talent is at....with USAP (Perpignan) too on occasion.
Toulon, you already know all the guys, and it ain't super pretty...

The big question right now in Top 14 circles about the EDF (Equipe De France)/ national team is the 9 and 10 positions:
look out for Pélissié at 9 for MP, he's currently on fire and looks fantastic as a pair with TrinhDuc at 10.
Watch a bit of Parra in Clermont and judge whether he still deserves his spot on les bleus. A majority of fans would actually like Kockott on the EDF.
And then watch some Castres for Remi Tales at 10. Camille Lopez is "the other prospect" right now at 10, and he plays for Perpignan, a pretty nice team as well.

Got to agree with the Big Ewis, sooner than later Pelissie will be wearing the 9 shirt for France, he murdered Parra on Friday night and out stripped Nalaga and Sivivatu for pace, and FTD could just get the 10 shirt back for the 6 nations unless there is a disaster in the Nov internationals then maybe even sooner.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

that's your problem man, you knew the life-threatening implications of our deal before you agreed to it.
No, I'm (only half) kidding of course...

Watch Montpellier, Toulouse, Clermont and Castres basically, that's where most (well, 'all') of the French talent is at....with USAP (Perpignan) too on occasion.
Toulon, you already know all the guys, and it ain't super pretty...

The big question right now in Top 14 circles about the EDF (Equipe De France)/ national team is the 9 and 10 positions:
look out for Pélissié at 9 for MP, he's currently on fire and looks fantastic as a pair with TrinhDuc at 10.
Watch a bit of Parra in Clermont and judge whether he still deserves his spot on les bleus. A majority of fans would actually like Kockott on the EDF.
And then watch some Castres for Remi Tales at 10. Camille Lopez is "the other prospect" right now at 10, and he plays for Perpignan, a pretty nice team as well.

Thanks, I'll try to watch out for those teams as well. Have up till now mainly watched for Toulouse, RM92 (my adopted team because I like the blue and white stripes), Toulon and Stade Francais matches mainly because the players are familiar to me and I was interested to see some of them in NH rugby, particularly the SA players. Those were also the teams with the most 'hype'/media coverage over here.

 

[Big Ewis]

Got to agree with the Big Ewis, sooner than later Pelissie will be wearing the 9 shirt for France, he murdered Parra on Friday night and out stripped Nalaga and Sivivatu for pace, and FTD could just get the 10 shirt back for the 6 nations unless there is a disaster in the Nov internationals then maybe even sooner.

"FTD" lol, yeh Trinh-Duc most definitely has a lot to bring, but he's got those flaws everybody brings up.
I'm pro FTD back in the XV de France, but it's just I'd like for Lopez and Tales to develop and get some caps, show what they can do. We know what FTD can do, but we haven't seen enough of those latter two.

Thanks, I'll try to watch out for those teams as well. Have up till now mainly watched for Toulouse, RM92 (my adopted team because I like the blue and white stripes), Toulon and Stade Francais matches mainly because the players are familiar to me and I was interested to see some of them in NH rugby, particularly the SA players. Those were also the teams with the most 'hype'/media coverage over here.

yeh I suppose you can catch any of the Paris-based teams (Racing, Stade). Maybe SF can be a gateway team, which I think is one of the objectives of the Top14; attracting foreign viewers through having foreign players; with a familiar (and strange) face like Morné Steyne.
Personally I like Racing better, they've got some attractive backs.

Good luck, hun !

 

[Big Ewis]

So this is the squad so far:
Les avants: Debaty, Domingo, Mas, Slimani - Kayser, Szarzewski - Maestri, Papé, Vahaamahina, Flanquart - Chouly, Dusautoir, Picamoles, Le Roux, Ouedraogo, Nyanga.

Les trois-quarts: Parra, Machenaud, Doussain - Tales, Lopez - Fofana, Fritz, Fickou, Mermoz, Bastareaud - Médard, Guitoune - Huget, Dulin.


Happy the selectors are going all the way with Lopez and Tales, it's good they'll solidify their presence in the XV de France and put on some intl' cap weight.
Excited to see Guitoune at int'l level, excited to see Slimani against int'l opposition in the scrum.
I'm not super super happy with our 3rd row these days, not that there's much better selection possible. But thank God for Picamoles.
Midfield looks fantastic, if not for Mermoz...I think we can get someone better in his stead.
Clerc still out, and our wings look a little light just now: rookie Guitoune and Médard. There's more solid talent right now in France at that position..but perhaps not quite ripe yet.

 

[Big Ewis]

Just watched this summer's third test in NZ again, just now..
The Blacks manage to score a try at the, like, 79th minute when France defended excellently during the whole but were just 14 men for the last 10min of the match.

Our attack wasn't ridiculous either, despite some experimental handling of the lineup. Doussain at 9 and Tales at 10...
The scrum was good, pushed em waaaaaaaaay back on that one scrum, but they pushed us back a little a couple of times.
Picamoles was out injured, and we didn't have our good wingers - Huget just isn't a great int'l level wing, clear and simple at this point, and then Andreu needs to improve. We need our Médard, Clerc, Fall...
Bastareaud barely played, he should play more, and Fofana literally slipped and fell on every single ball he got, it's just ridiculous..

This is going to sound comically recurrent, but there is great potential on this French side - not good, great.

If this is the last we've seen of them, and they weren't completely ready to play this 3-match series, then the future is promising. Of course, the very previous week we'd take a big 30-0 up the butt, but many teams would've beaten us on that form, let alone the AB's at home vexed from only just winning the first test.

But nobody will ever remember how close the 1st and 2nd tests were, ppl will only read those results and say "huh, France lost all 3". If we'd just won the 1 test match...

We definitely *can* beat the AB at home, and we can beat SA..but of course there's quite a gap between potential and realization of potential.

We really, really, REALLY do need to have a more stable lineup though. It's awesome that we're probably Top 3 deepest in the world, but obviously chemistry is everything...we can't keep adding new faces every single fkn Tour of the year..

 

[Big Ewis]

(not sure why I still post on this thread...call me headstrong..)

Happy to see Debatty dropped for specifically Yannick Forestier from Castres. Exactly what I wanted, it's awesome to have a running prop who can knock ppl on the floor but he has a problem with offloading first of all, but a lot more importantly we suffer big time in the scrums when he comes in around that 60th minute. The only time I saw him shine in the scrum was last time we played the Aussies...

So those are some tasty props we've got there, all 4 of em, with a couple of classic hookers for us.

Papé's back, so are Dusautoir and our big boy Picamoles:

Talonneurs : Benjamin Kayser (ASM Clermont), Dimitri Szarzewski (Racing Métro 92)

Piliers : Thomas Domingo (ASM Clermont), Nicolas Mas (Montpellier), Rabah Slimani (Stade Français), Yannick Forestier (Castres)

2e-ligne : Yoann Maestri (Stade Toulousain), Pascal Papé (Stade Français), Sébastien Vahaamahina (USAP), Alexandre Flanquart (Stade Français)

3e-ligne : Louis Picamoles (Stade Toulousain), Thierry Dusautoir (Stade Toulousain), Yannick Nyanga (Stade Toulousain), Fulgence Ouedraogo (Montpellier), Bernard Le Roux (Racing Métro 92), Damien Chouly (ASM Clermont)

Demis de mêlée : Morgan Parra (ASM Clermont), Jean-Marc Doussain (Stade Toulousain), Maxime Machenaud (Racing Méro 92)

Demis d'ouverture : Camille Lopez (USAP), Rémi Talès (Castres Olympique)

Centres : Wesley Fofana (ASM Clermont), Florian Fritz (Stade Toulousain), Gaël Fickou (Stade Toulousain), Mathieu Bastareaud (RCT), Maxime Mermoz (RCT)

Ailiers / Arrières : Maxime Médard (Stade Toulousain), Yoann Huget (Stade Toulousain), Brice Dulin (Castres Olympique), Sofiane Guitoune (USAP)
​

 

[gaston le gaff]

Parra gets a 4 week ban and Machenaud is injured, leaving just Doussain of Toulouse for the All Blacks game, will this give Jonathon Pelissie of Montpellier the chance that he deserves after playing excellent rugby for Montpellier so far this season, and if PSA had any balls he would select Trinh-Duc at 10 while he is at it!!!!!!!!!!! but that is another story.