English posters have just gone berserk over the last few days. Wasteful aggressiveness, much touchier than usual, over-defensive...not sure what's going on, but it seems France playing bad has excited the English appetite, like a piece of meat for piranhas. A lot of sheer vehemence and it's not the atmosphere a Rugby forum deserves.
I didn't say anything inappropriate when France beat England in early Feb., and it was very big for us to start with a win, esp. over England, and what an awesome ending. I was in position to do quite some damage but I don't like to stir the crap or take advantage of situations, it's foolish and cheap.
A few English posters have really lost their decency here.
About Fofana and french flair and England and wtvr...it's not very complicated and some are making it blurry and confusing:
our guys individually offer a lot. We constantly make breaks, run meters, make the offloads, passes etc...our backs aren't the type to smash into the opposition. They're very athletic and have excellent skill individually (Bonneval, Dulin, Huget, Fofana, Fickou...). But then, we lack a whole lot on attack and game plan as a whole because Saint-André it seems really really sucks as a coach. So even though our backs constantly put in a ton of work each match, they too often look for the individual matchup and we often end up with nothing.
England backs can't create like the French backs. Guys like Burrell, 36, May, Nowell run straight lines. M. Brown is a fantastic back. Yes England has scored some efficient tries, but the athletic individual quality just isn't the same.
- England are: territorial kicking from Farrell, a lot of work up front/high work rate, one pass/ruck/one pass/ruck..., usually a big scrum but that hasn't worked out recently, good lineout and backs playing a very linear style.
- France are: everybody on the team playing hero-ball, looking for the answer individually, little chemistry at all, discipline issues, big scrum and okay lineout, very/quick athletic backs with good technique (so far particularly efficient with counter ball, broken play ball), tons of breaching/breaking/beating defenders but little conclusion, and overall just not playing like a team should/very limited game plan.
In the Top 14, they'd be a team with excellent players throughout but just bad playing together relatively to other teams.
As for Doussain, just drop it. He's a very good player, I amongst many thought he was the best French SH for a while (even over Parra), but this match in Wales he was really bad for some reason, most probably fatigue.
And btw I didn't intend to defend France, it's just been brought up so often I had to voice my take on it. I was fine settling for criticizing our lack of game plan...
well Fofana can distribute. It maybe not his best skill but he puts guys into space in Clermont. He can pass I have seen it. The problem with Fofana is that he can often isolate himself because he is so quick and elusive. So the problem is support because u need guys who can keep up with him, this is why he can go his own.
That's just one example of how bad France uses its players. Basta has been under the microscope for weeks now. Yes he could do better, but France utilize him in a terrible way. He's given passes with tacklers at his level, France use no depth in their attack, no overlaps, skip-passes, no scheme on attack that's beyond the mere "let's go all the way right, then all the way left".
We play really bad as a team, but the components are of very good quality, and that's what's saved us so far in this tournament.
And you see it with Saint-André, he even says in interviews: "our guys need to win more individual matchups". Dude, no they fkn don't. They do amazingly well all the time there. What they need is a FKN GAMEPLAN and efficient, versatile schemes for the backs as we've ALWAYS had. Even some years ago.
We've never been this bad on attack. Only since PSA took over.
