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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barthelemy" data-source="post: 763065" data-attributes="member: 56370">Again, all what you are explaining, the so called skill level are down to the number of matches players are playing along a year and the focus put on rugby in NZ. If you play 40 matches a year compare to somebody who plays 25 matches a year, you will be more injured, you will have less time to train on specifics, you will have less time to train on specific skills, you will have less time to train on collective tactics.If you play only 3.5 months in a year (FR) with a group for the national team (if you are lucky to not be impacted by the injuries and have the same group of players), you will have less chances to succeed that a group of players that are training 6 months in the year together (NZ). Number of matches players are playing is a central thing in the difference that exists between FR and NZ, you have to acknowledge it. Read what ABs2011 is saying above, he is spot on and he understood what we are trying to say here. this is not too much about the skill level of the top14 but more about the cadences, the number of match we play in france. If you play less match, you can show better display, you can work on intensity, you can train on specifics. when you have a match almost every week along the year, this is much more difficult to be at the top all the time.there is also a culture of rugby as explained by ABs2011, Young NZ guys are learning basics very early and in a good way definitely but I think  it makes for 5% of the difference between FR and NZ, this is not the main difference in my perspective.</blockquote>

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