My best XV team

[FrenchFan]

This is based on my own appraisal with a big help from LNR stats

1 Antoine Tichit (Oyonnax)
2 Guilhem Guirado (Toulon)
3 Rabah Slimani (Stade Français)
4 Yoann Maestri (Toulouse)
5 Thibault Lassale (Oyonnax)
6 Wenceslas Lauret (Racing)
7 Camille Gérondeau (Racing)
8 Charles Ollivon (Bayonne)
9 Maxime Machenaud (Racing)
10 Francois Trinh Duc* (Montpellier)/Jonathan Wisniewski (Grenoble)
11 Yoann Huget (Toulouse)
12 Matt Giteau (Toulon)
13 Wesley Fofana (Clermont)
14 David Smith (Toulon)
15 Gaetan Germain (Brive)

*before his injury

Head coach Christophe Urios (Oyonnax)
Backs coach JF Dubois (SF) Vincent Etcheto (Bordeaux)
Best overall scorer Jonathan Wisniewski
Best try scorer David Smith (13)

 

[JJFlash]

Agree with Machenaud at scrum half, but why the hell isn't he in the World Cup squad? If I recall, the 3 scrum halves are, Tillous-Borde, Parra and Kockott.

 

[FrenchFan]

Agree with Machenaud at scrum half, but why the hell isn't he in the World Cup squad? If I recall, the 3 scrum halves are, Tillous-Borde, Parra and Kockott.

Like I said nobody knows. http://www.therugbyforum.com/threads/35604-France-Training-Squad?p=728696#post728696. The decisions over the No 9 and 10 pos are the most baffling of all. The 9 shirt is the one with the most depth. There is plenty of choices at 10 as well yet they still haven't figured out their best halfbacks after nearly 4 yrs.
And for both positions of all the players available not one is barred by a better foreigner. The French players are all first starters at their club in every case. Plisson has displaced Morne Steyn ditto Lopez over James etc.

The selection policy is flawed and has been exposed many times. None of the T14 head coaches pay any heed to it anyway. Worst of all, they've openly criticized the current staff from Labit to Azema Noves Laporte, they can see thru the staff BS and called their bluff. The 30 players protected list has also proved a farce which it what it was from day one.

I find it hilarious that Noves who has always had utter contempt for FFr (just thinking about the endless list of his statements about the national team, how he protected his players vs FFr and how he fuelled the club v country culture)
And yet he got the gig after all the candidates had withdrawn - except for Galthié who was without a club and Ibanez who is the only T14 head coach who applied. Nobody else in T14 as well as Fabien Pelous (France U20) and Jacques Brunel applied. That's how stuck FFr were.

The media have been tripping all over themselves over his appointment. They turned Noves into the Messiah overnight after slagging him off because Toulouse have not won a ***le since 2012. Hilarious.

At the end of day FFr gave the job to a man in pre-retirement who's been ******* down their neck for 20 odd years. Hat off to him, the parisians were eating out of his hand. One last thumb of the nose to them before he retires...