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French Uprising

TNT88

TNT88

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Imanol Harinordoquy has confirmed that France's players rebelled against head coach Marc Lievremont during their Rugby World Cup campaign and managed themselves throughout the knockout stages.

There were rumours of unrest within the French camp before the tournament even began, with one report suggesting that 25 members of the 30-strong panel had turned against Lievremont. The coach's public criticism of his troops after the laboured win over Japan on the opening weekend and their shock loss to Tonga in their final pool outing did little to quell the speculation that the players were planning a mutiny. Harinordoquy has now revealed that matters came to a head after their fortuitous qualification for the quarter-finals.
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Continued: http://www.espnscrum.com/france/rugby/story/153440.html

What do French fans think of this? Did they actually play without a coach or is he sensationalizing things a bit?

It would be incredibly amazing if they did all that without a coach. Maybe they shouldn't bother with one anymore!
 
There were clues

1. You can only abuse, berate and castigate your players publicly so many times before you lose their respect.

2. None of the player were present at Leivremont's "farewell" press conference

3. Dusoutoir thanked his team-mates in his "Player of the Year" acceptance speech but did not mention the coach once!
 
I think Harinordoquy may be over playing it a bit. He also had a whinge at Joubert and McCaw and I get the impression he is just having a moan.

That being said, there certainly did seem to be devision in the French camp and you could tell that Lievremont knew he was unliked by much of the team.
 
Matfield and Smit have been running the Boks for the last 4 years so I don't find it all that shocking to learn another team with a "problem" coach has done the same.
 
I don't spit on him because ML has, at least, chooses players and remains the french coach with the best visit card.
 
It could make it harder for PSA to now take over with these players having called the shots. Hope not for France's sake but taking over the reins of a team that has just rebelled and run itself could prove awkward. Hopefully PSA commands enough respect and it becomes business as normal. Lievremont was a totally bizarre coach.
 
Harinordoquy is quite a respectable player on and off the field and is not known at all to be difficult to coach. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised that this is true.
 

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