Being gracious in victory is easy but i wouldnt of expected anything else from you either way Mon Ami.
well it's not like I'm excited anyways, just very relieved and at peace. It sounds silly, but we "deserved" a win, moral victories we've had enough of...you know, it's exhausting being a French fan ! And since we're exchanging kind words, I rate you as a poster, like the username you picked and am happy to see that you're amongst English fans who didn't turn sour from the outcome.
I like to *tease* everyone, English French alike, but I don't like to rub it in. That wouldn't be humor, but just offensive.
I actually can say this now: I thought France would win this semi-comfortably, by about 10. The fact it took Superman to score a try to win at the 77th, without which we'd LOSE ANOTHER ONE in Paris, another year started by defeat, another loss to England...it would've been a downward spiral and a mental complex.
Both Huget's tries were lucky if you look at the highlights, but the second one had good construction prior to the score. England got a bit lucky themselves on the Billy V to Mike Brown try too, but also what a
fantastic finish by the fullback. Vunipola decisive again on the second try to L.Burrell, good play, France were just overtaken there, one gear too slow. But then we get a try out of literally nothing and England, like France previously, was running out of energy.
That's a big relief for me because it felt like England were without boundaries and had unlimited energy. Their defense was suffocating, their waves of white jerseys perpetual, and I felt we needed spectacular try-scoring to win this which we didn't look susceptible of accomplishing at all...
Another relief is France really fell asleep too for the whole middle part. Yes, England's pressure was huge, and fatigue ensued; but we did also fall asleep for a while. Cruise control, autopilot.
Each team had one half where it dominated every area of th game with the exception of line-outs - the english one was more effective - and scrummaging where the french as usual performed better.
This, until the last 5 minutes of the half...where the badly performing team suddenly woke up and scored a try...what a strange game !
Man of the match:
- Vunipola on english side, that guy is a truck...really impressive, even though Morgan was also very effective,
- Nyanga on french side, was everywhere, tackling, rucking, even playing as a winger...good to see him come back to that state of ,form. Huget, very opportunistic also...for once, let's say.
Villain of the match:
- Goode on english side, just forgot to defend,
- Doussain on french side, converted every ball he touched in sh.t., missed 2 conversions...Machenaud to start the next match. I think we will greatly miss Parra's experience against Wales or Ireland.
The difference of weight between the two teams start looking really ridiculous...seeing Lawes pushing Forestier away as if the latter was a winger...ok, impact is not only a question of weight but rather a compromise between weight and speed, still when you see the poor performance of Bastareaud, this is actually a little bit intriguing. Fickou, for me that guy is much more a winger than a centre even though he can play at both positions; here we miss Fritz, unfortunately. Maybe he's not a heavyweight but he has an ability to break the line that Bastareaud seems to have lost, at least when playing for the national team.
But where that difference is the more obvious is in the rucks, if the centres have such a hard time it is also because we got the ball out too slowly, and the english third line is IMO far from being the best of the tournament. The whole pack didn't convince me, they were taylored for defense which they achieved decently, but when we had the ball we were slow, had no pace and the english defense had always plenty of time to reorganize.
This is a recurrent problem for many years and this year we obviously missing some world-class players in third line; Dusautoir, even though he's not more a youngster, is still a reference and we obviously miss him a lot, now only Picamoles is really convincing. And Dusautoir is closer from retirement than anything else...This will be IMO the biggest issue during the next WC.
I agree on every point
jaunard, and nice to see you around here again. Our third row could look better than what we have, obviously with Ouedraogo, Dusautoir, Lauret out...even though none of these guys have sheer weight to bring to the pack. But our pack was in deed weakened yesterday night, and in particular Vahaamahina at lock and Dusautoir at flanker would've have helped in deed. I'd also have liked to see Lauret against England. He's super powerful, a great tackler/fetcher ("plaqueur/gratteur") but only 95kg, would've been a good test of strength for him.
Also, Burban was a bit transparent...hope to see more of him in the weekends to come.
Nyanga was a hero though. And Doussain was mediocre, and excellent to see Machenaud on form. We really have a myriad of international class scrumhalves: Machenaud, Parra, Pélissié, Doussain........Kockott...
Bastareaud played third rower yesterday. And we dearly missed Florian Fritz in deed. Would've been yet another Toulousain in for the rescue !! Picamoles, the unsung hero, was solicited the entire match and never failed to carry. Huge.
And on the wings: how much we missed Guitoune...Huget was excellent, but Médard mmm...
