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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barthelemy" data-source="post: 551221" data-attributes="member: 56370">If the french federation was proposing an interesting money deal to the clubs (that would permit clubs to employ some joker players to replace the missing French players for example), Clubs would accept more easily that players play for the french team all along the 6th nation tournament. Surely, and you are right on this, the fact to have a top 14 does not help the calendar and the disponibility of the players. + the fact to have some Semi-finals and finals at the end of the Top14 championship is adding even more matches to the calendar. 2 teams more in our championship, it is 4 more matches to play along the year (so 4 weeks more of matches for French players) and if you are part part of teh team that plays the Top14 final championship, you should play 6 more matches than any other rugbyman in Europe. 1 Month and half more over the year..it is making definitely a huge difference at the end of the season.For example, for the 2011 year, I saw a comparison between the number of matches played by Dussautoir and Carter and the difference was huge. Dussautoir it was 45 matches played for the 2010-2011 and Carter it was like 32 matches played + All blacks are playing together 6 months a year compare to maybe 3-4 months for the french team. You can't be competitive in the same way obviously with such differences.you are also right that the autumn/summer tours are an issue for the calendar...Anyway, all of this make the french rugby struggling about consistency. When we have a proper preparation time, same time as other national team, (like WRC for example) we are in general performing very well....our results in world cup are speaking for itself...</blockquote>

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