[2025 Six Nations] Italy vs France - 23/02/25

[Toulousain ex French fan]

But this is partly a reflection of Galthié's own mindset. He keeps experimenting sometimes at the expense of winning. Five years in the job he should make winning the 6N his no1 priority. If he did he wouldn't chop and change with three different 10s in as many games like he did. We didn't need a 7-1 split vs Italy either... Leave experimenting for the AI in November and developing depth for the June tour.
He is responsible for the players mindset and while they talk of winning I find their focus is not set, they talk the talk because it's what the media want to hear, but it didn't translate vs England. This is a coaching issue.
Galthié is always defending his record. He is proud of his ''80% win ratio'' that quite frankly nobody gives a **** about. In his first interview of the championship before the Welsh game he was at it again, defending his record as if his job was at stake. Dupont was present and said he didn't care about an 80% win ratio, he wanted to win the 6N. Toulouse want fill their trophy cabinet, not ponce about some win ratio in CCup.
The talk around the 7-1 split is a red herring for the media. Against Italy, it's pretty meaningless. I agree that the team's mindset is somewhat questionable and they will need a focus I have not seen so far to win in Dublin.

 

[Batsumy]

But this is partly a reflection of Galthié's own mindset. He keeps experimenting sometimes at the expense of winning. Five years in the job he should make winning the 6N his no1 priority. If he did he wouldn't chop and change with three different 10s in as many games like he did. We didn't need a 7-1 split vs Italy either... Leave experimenting for the AI in November and developing depth for the June tour.
He is responsible for the players mindset and while they talk of winning I find their focus is not set, they talk the talk because it's what the media want to hear, but it didn't translate vs England. This is a coaching issue.
Galthié is always defending his record. He is proud of his ''80% win ratio'' that quite frankly nobody gives a **** about. In his first interview of the championship before the Welsh game he was at it again, defending his record as if his job was at stake. Dupont was present and said he didn't care about an 80% win ratio, he wanted to win the 6N. Toulouse want fill their trophy cabinet, not ponce about some win ratio in CCup.
The talk around the 7-1 split is a red herring for the media. Against Italy, it's pretty meaningless. I agree that the team's mindset is somewhat questionable and they will need a focus I have not seen so far to win in Dublin.

Against England, this was not a coaching issue, this was a clumsy player issue, we should have been 21-7 at half time. Not saying that Galthie is perfect and he does some crappy selection and choices I believe (and possibly we would be world champion without him) but thats a bit too easy to put that on one man. The reality is that we have a complicated relation between clubs and federation whilst the irish do not have that issue, everything is geared toward the success of the national team in Ireland. I'm impressed to see Prendergast already playing at the international level, he is nurtured and well taken care off, some wont agree with me but I do not think he is an incredible player but Ireland knows how to take care of their players and bring them to where they can be, partly certainly because they do not have a an enormous pool of players so they have to do with what they have, They know how to transform "average" young players into very good mature rugbymen, and they do it well, but also partly because they have a great connection between clubs/province and national team, it is all working smoothly together, which is much less the case in France. But if you want to reduce this to Galthie, good for you !

Look at ireland, from Schmidt, Farrell to Easterby, consistency is around and yes the coach is important but the overall system is the key to success

 

[Toulousain ex French fan]

The clubs have bent backwards (over, some might say…) for Galthié. He wanted 42 players in camp, he got it. He wanted the Premium system with 'protected players', he got it. Recently the financial compensation paid by the union to the clubs for the use of their players has dropped. It's always up to the clubs to carry the burden of the union mismanagement. It's not the system that's competent, it's the men that make it up. The Irish system works for the Irish, we don't have provinces, so it's a pretty meaningless comparison. It's just an excuse not to look at coaching issues that keep resurfacing under Galthié.
Is the current generation not good enough to win more than one 6N in 5 years, who's going to believe that. It's funny to think the current Toulouse that make up the bulk of the starting XV didn't drop the ball on their way to 4 Top14 and 2 CCup in last 5 years…Hiding behind an 11-try rout of a 20' test team like Italy is very well but it doesn't tell us much, we'll see in Dublin.