Wind the clock back 11 years, to the England tour of the Shaky Isles in June 2014. The most important tour of the Stuart Lancaster era occurred only one year before a home World Cup, but its value to the team’s development was blown to smithereens by a clash with the club season.
The English Premiership final between Northampton and Saracens was played out at Twickenham on 31 May, while the first Test at Eden Park was scheduled for 7 June on the following weekend. That first game now had to to played by an England ‘B’ or ‘C’ team versus one of the greatest sides in All Black history.
The list of hall of famers included cap centurions Tony Woodcock and Owen Franks at prop, with probably the best second row of the professional era [Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock] locking the scrum behind them. Jerome Kaino and all-world skipper Richie McCaw in the back row; Aaron ‘Nugget’ Smith at nine, Ma’a Nonu and Conrad Smith in the centres, with Ben Smith conducting the orchestra from the back three.
After three or four months of intense preparation as Stuart Lancaster’s chief analyst, I felt I knew some of them as well as I knew my own family. Individual tendencies, psychological profiles, tactical patterns in all areas of the field, on both sides of the ball. The challenge was hugely stimulating because those All Blacks were so far ahead of everyone else at the time, and innovated in so many different aspects of the game.
England lost the first Test at the ‘Garden of Eden’ by only five points, 20-15, and it was mighty close. We could have won it, maybe we should have won it. A 15-15 deadlock was only broken when Conrad ‘the Snake’ struck lethally two minutes from the final whistle.
Sixteen new players, culled mostly from the clubs who had played in the Premiership final, arrived in time to play in the second Test in Dunedin. The winners [Northampton] were on a high and still celebrating their success; the losers [Saracens] were still working their way out of the trough of despond. Both needed some R & R and neither were fully prepared for the challenge of the All Blacks in New Zealand.
England lost the second Test by a solitary point, 28-27, but were blown away in Hamilton in the third 36-13. The players were thoroughly exhausted and depleted by the overlapping demands of club and country. A tour opportunity which could have proved the making of the squad and a springboard into the 2015 World Cup had been squandered. Instead of being remembered or even revered, the England vintage of 2014 is forgotten. The back story of how well they competed, and how close they got to tasting success doesn’t matter. Only that unforgiving ‘3-0’ appears in the black and white at the bottom of the page.
Sounds familiar? It should, because that is the dilemma facing Les Bleus in New Zealand now. Like England in 2014, Fabien Galthié’s charges produced a performance in the first Test at the Forsyth-Barr Stadium which was in equal parts courageous, determined and skilled in specific areas of the game. But now they face an uphill battle, and the prospect of another two matches against an All Blacks outfit which can only improve. It will improve in terms of personnel and selection, and it will certainly adopt a more refined tactical approach after seeing first hand, what France ‘B’ has to offer.
Reinforcements are due to arrive from home, just as they did for England in 2014. Five players [UBB men, centre Nicolas Depoortere and back-rowers Pierre Bochaton and Romain Vergnes-Taillefer, plus Toulousain centre Pierre-Louis Barassi and original selection Leo Barre] will bolster the tour party, but it is questionable whether any will add definite value to the starting XV which performed so well in Dunedin.
The underswell to that 2014 tour was the most seismic shift in European club history. Only three months later, the English and French clubs, represented by Premiership Rugby and the LNR respectively, would announce their intention to leave the Heineken Cup and create their own competition. It was a major apogée of the private club ownership model in England and France.
England and France stayed eventually, but not before a raft of radical new proposals had been accepted, and the competition had been restructured on their own terms. The changes included a reduction from 24 to 20 clubs in the European Champions Cup, with the marketing and governance of the tournament now the responsibility of a new independent body, EPCR.
Participation from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy dropped from 11 to seven in the first year of the new tournament, and it has been the Anglo-French show ever since, with clubs from either England or France winning the Champions Cup on ten of the 11 occasions post-watershed. Only Leinster has been able to hold back the tide over the past decade.
The real question is whether the national team can flourish under such relentless pressure from the success of the domestic game. France supremo Fabien Galthié has been putting a brave face on it, at least so far. Let’s briefly reprise his pre-tour selection explanation:
“In collaboration with the clubs and the LNR, we have, with the indispensable presence of Jean-Marc Lhermet [F.F.R vice-president], changed the league-FFR agreement to allow Top 14 finalists to play in the second and third Tests. They will join us in Auckland on 2 July but will not play the first Test because they will have arrived [only] three days before.
“It’s not for a lack of explanation why we can’t send the most used players on a summer tour. French rugby players potentially have 37 matches to play with their club, to which we add, in absolute terms, 11 matches for the French XV. Who can play 50 rugby matches per season? Nobody.
“After 25 matches or 2,000 minutes played, the factors limiting a player’s performance and development are multiplied. This is a public health issue.”
The red lines are drawn at 2,000 minutes and/or participation in 25 games. It is easy to understand the source of Galthié’s dilemma when you compare the minutes/games of France’s ‘A’ team which finished the Six Nations versus Scotland, with the ‘B’ team which pitched up at Dunedin.
Salient points in the comparison are:
- Twenty-one of the players in the squad which played Scotland, and 17 of those who represented France in the first Test at Dunedin, have already crossed either one of Galthié’s red lines for player welfare.
- Five of the players who started for Les Bleus in Paris have crossed both red lines [Lucu, Bielle-Biarrey, Moefana, Penaud and Ramos] and were sensibly withdrawn from tour consideration. Four of those are UBB backs.
- A total of nine players from the Paris squad, and 12 from Dunedin, are likely to have exceeded 30 games for the season by the end of the tour.
- There are four players common to both squads [Guillard, Auradou, Le Garrec and Fickou]. Two of those [Le Garrec and Fickou] will likely cross both red lines in the course of this series, while four others [Attissogbe, Woki, Tixeront and Hastoy] will be either right on, or have crossed both limits.
The men at the beating heart of France’s first Test effort at Dunedin – number eight Guillard, the four half-backs [Le Garrec or Jauneau at nine, Segonds or Hastoy at 10], Fickou at 12 and Attissogbe at full-back] are all in imminent danger of playing over 2000 minutes, or over 30 games, or both. Overall, it is very hard to see what France is gaining in the player welfare equation. It is simply replacing one set of overworked players with another.
One of the key datasets I investigated for England 2014 was the French visit to New Zealand one year earlier. France hunted and harried the All Blacks to distraction in the course of a narrow 23-13 loss in the first Test. New Zealand rebounded to win the second Test 30-0 and the third 24-9, conceding no tries in 160 minutes of footy to Les Bleus in the process. Like England, France bowed out ignominiously at the 2015 World Cup two year later, courtesy of a 62-13 thumping by the All Blacks at the quarter-final stage in Cardiff. New Zealand did for the red cockerel as they did for the red rose.
The All Blacks scored three tries in Dunedin and they could have had six on another day, with three more disallowed on review. But despite forcing France to make 220 tackles and kick the ball away on 33 occasions for almost 1000 total metres, New Zealand were unable to conclusively prove the superiority of their attack to the French pattern of defence coached by the estimable Shaun Edwards.
The French defence out wide will typically feature the last edge defender standing square and looking in directly at the passer. He will cut the last attacker loose but the threat of an interception is magnified, and Damian McKenzie fails to solve the same problem on two successive occasions.
With the full width of the field to work in, the choke point will occur far further infield.
The man standing square and looking in at the start of the very first clip is number 11 Gabin Villière [in the red hat] and he tends to follow the ball in contact after his first mission is over. The Toulon man is really a number seven in a wing’s body, and he epitomised France robustness at the post-tackle throughout the match.
After losing the ball in midfield, most wings would be sprinting back post-haste to the safe haven of the side-line, but not Villière. He is quite content to track the ball as it bounces back in off touch, and finishes with a turnover from the classic position of a natural open-side – directly opposite the expected first receiver!
On this occasion, the All Blacks manage to bypass the square-in defender and Villière is playing ‘left safety’ in the French backfield, first bringing Ardie Savea to ground and then following the ball infield to lead a winning counter-ruck on the next play. Just after half-time, the rouge-et-noir wingman made a try-saving third intervention.
The French defence was stretched to breaking point and beyond at the Forsyth Barr Stadium, just as the Top 14’s deep resources of manpower are being tested to the limit by an understrength squad on tour to the Land of the Long White Cloud.
There is the same sense of clash between the needs of club and country, between domestic and international seasons that England experienced on the other side of the world 11 years ago. The similarities are too close to ignore. The fragmented nature of preparation on that 2014 tour destroyed any gains in development that might have been made, individual or collective. France’s inconsistent selection and player welfare policy now threatens the same fate. Three games to nil, and a blackwash.
We have the answer now: NO
Of course they can, WR has ultimate power and Galthie needs to abide the rules.
That means putting the best French side out there. Arbitrarily excluding the elite player breaks everything that WR has laid out as being ‘rugby’.
He can say such and such a player is unfit to tour in July, but that’s not what he did. He said I’m not even going to consider our best players.
Galthie was made to change is tact, he didn’t end up doing the above.
Of course not, that’s silly and impossible, he can only select 40 odd and his list would keep building if he had to include those he’d previously selected. What I’m saying, and I’ll try to word this another way, but this is the clearest I think I can make it, “he must select from a group of players that does not exclude anyone, like the ‘premium’ players”.
I already underlined that it’s Galthié’s job inside FFR: sélectionneur of the French National Team. With his job comes the golden rule that no one else, from FFR to WR, and for as long as he stays in charge, can tell him who’s going to play the next game for France.
Future regulation on player welfare, if an agreement is ever reached at some point, is in no way going to change this rule: the person in charge is the one who decide his team.
Say if, at some point, a strict limit on game time per season would be defined for international selection, those in charge would continue to apply their own strategy and priorities. It would not outlaws what Galthié did, on the contrary.
Do you really believe that WR could reach an agreement in order to impose something like: “if a previously selected player is under such game time limit, he must be part of the next national team selection*”?
No way, simply think about it for two minutes because I’m running out of circles on the subject.
(*) In foot page small characters: “unless he is 40 years old, etc. etc.”
Having just finished watching the second Test, I think it proves the essential point.
No continuity for the tourists between Tests 1 and 2, worse performance, now 3-0 staring France in the face.
What’s the point of blaming everyone else for problems you have created for yourself?
All part of the master plan apparently.
Don’t you know theres no gotcha on the internet Nick! Not until the end of days anyway.
Personally I think the players themselves were an upgrade, but yeah couldn’t make it count.
It's France B ,
so no one will ever know if the actual France would have won let alone avoid a Black wash.
& there lies the disaster.
Like at every 1 of their choking RWCs… they didn’t show up.
If they had, the actual question, given they've beaten the AB every game since 2018 would be,
‘Will it be a blue wash?’
We will all never know.
Hence,
wake up World Rugby (!! Do your job!),
protect the international periods.
If you want to see what test rugby could become if World Rugby allows it to be treated the way the French typically do, look at all the B's showing up in test cricket due the India's big contracts & timing of IPL.
Don't invite back until its France A or nothing.
They set up their Top14 comp with full knowledge it conflicted with the known World Rugby international window BUT act like victims of saying they can't bring the top due to it. Really?... Top14 final finished 29 June, exactly a week ago, & a week after the SRP final. Bring the A team now?? Excuses?? Pathetic! Same French mentality that fails to commitment to winning but just keeps choking at each & every RWC.
France sent a strong team in 1994 and won, famously at Eden park. That same team went deep in the 1995 RWC losing a narrow semi to the eventual winners.
France sent a strong team in 1996 and won. They then won back-to-back slams in 1997 & 1998 and made the 1999 RWC final, having destroyed NZ in the semi.
France sent a strong team in 2009 and won. They went all the way to the 2011 RWC final only to lose by a single point. 8 players from that final played in the 2009 game.
Is that really the case though? This is what the whole debate is really about of course, whether Fabien is just coming up with excuses for LNR bullying of its International players, whether for France or Fiji, during International windows. Something that’s gone on semi under the radar for decades without WR doing much about it.
For instance, here are last years touring teams, showing total season numbers (2 more games/weekends than what French players are at here in this article), in minutes then number of games.
First 23 of two match series against New Zealand and South Africa respectfully;
England
Joe MARLER 1238 32
Jamie GEORGE 1822 32
Will STUART 1322 35
Maro ITOJE 2541 33
George MARTIN 1357 22
Chandler CUNNINGHAM-SOUTH 987 24
Sam UNDERHILL 1598 24
Ben EARL 1869 27
Alex MITCHELL 2041 32
Marcus SMITH 2178 34
Tommy FREEMAN 2530 35
Ollie LAWRENCE 2148 33
Henry SLADE 2554 34
Immanuel FEYI-WABOSO 1773 28
George FURBANK 709 12
Theo DAN 1184 38
Fin BAXTER 1414 28
Dan COLE 1268 28
Alex COLES 1839 28
Tom CURRY 373 9
Ben SPENCER 1741 28
Fin SMITH 2036 33
Ollie SLEIGHTHOLME 1325 23
Ireland
Andrew PORTER 1717 27
Dan SHEEHAN 1411 28
Tadhg FURLONG 1356 26
Joe MCCARTHY 1857 27
Tadhg BEIRNE 2372 31
Peter O'MAHONY 1372 24
Josh VAN DER FLIER 1784 29
Caelan DORIS 2149 33
Craig CASEY 1409 26
Jack CROWLEY 2202 33
James LOWE 1681 22
Bundee AKI 1749 22
Robbie HENSHAW 1862 26
Calvin NASH 1871 26
Jamie OSBORNE 1421 19
Ronan KELLEHER 1047 30
Cian HEALY 517 22
Finlay BEALHAM 1102 27
James RYAN 1137 21
Ryan BAIRD 1616 28
Conor MURRAY 898 29
Ciarán FRAWLEY 1518 28
Garry RINGROSE 1180 18
As you can see, and would expect, there is no reason France’s best players shouldn’t be playing if they want to, with Englands players managing well and following up with a strong 6N despite a much heavier load, and only slightly behind (as this French season is still going) Irelands similar player management of players, compared to French clubs (with its heavy Leinster following), which allowing them to take part.
So is it all bogus? Well don’t let these numbers decide for you. Their source is questionable and it’s only one season (a RWC one at that). French fans complaining about overworked players do well to point out things have improved only recently and that players are still recovering from heavier loads some two or three years prior.
I’ve added some more numbers for anyone with interest.
England 23/24 minutes 37847 games 652
Ireland 23/24 minutes 35228 games 602
France A 24/25 minutes 37160 games 623
France C 24/25 minutes 33200 games 612
France B (the remaining players not in A or C)
Cyril BAILLE 635 16
Georges-Henri COLOMBE 550 17
Reda WARDI 1362 27
Tevita TATAFU 655 16
Joshua BRENNAN 1254 28
Matthias HALAGAHU 1114 23
Bastien VERGNES-TAILLEFER 1206 27
Charles OLLIVON 877 14
Esteban ABADIE 1893 27
Greg ALLDRITT 1804 27
Marko GAZZOTTI 1516 30
Thibault DAUBAGNA 1310 28
Matthieu JALIBERT 1847 28
Nicolas DEPOORTÈRE 1629 25
Pierre-Louis 1751 26
Leo BARRÉ 1621 26
We can see the team for Scotland would have easily matched/surpassed England, were we have 1200 minutes a match, so we can consider this a sound principle for a group of players (a large part of selection/fitness criteria was based around excluding the 6N team) if not on an individual level.
Like for Like compared to some touring Lions(missing finalists, all.rugby is not following midweek games) ;
Ellis GENGE 1544 27
Finlay BEALHAM 1385 25
Pierre SCHOEMAN 1455 28
Tadhg FURLONG 394 10
Luke COWAN-DICKIE 1673 28
Ronan KELLEHER 908 21
Maro ITOJE 2136 28
Scott CUMMINGS 1061 20
Tadhg BEIRNE 2106 27
Ben EARL 1869 27
Henry POLLOCK 1618 27
Jac MORGAN 1919 26
Tom CURRY 1427 24
Alex MITCHELL 1353 22
Tomos WILLIAMS 1744 26
Fin SMITH 1834 27
Marcus SMITH 2115 28
Bundee AKI 1509 22
Elliot DALY 1662 23
Sione TUIPULOTU 1309 17
Duhan VAN DER MERWE 1463 20
Mack HANSEN 1270 17
Tommy FREEMAN 2202 29
Lions v Arg 23 - minutes 35956 games 549
France C, at 33k min, is very light. Was there a middle ground to be had or is it all bogus and the french clubs are out of control? Their brand will be hurting big time, and there are opportunities for LNR to make some easy fixes. Do they have the balls?
You're decent, Bhoy!!!
Always make the effort. My brain is too small to grasp even 20% of that, but what a wealth of info.
Top, top lad.
Thanks for that JW.
NB
That’s what I would have wanted Jordan to do on their first big break!
The kick line pressure was good, no real clear cut opportunities for a makeshift fullback to take advantage of. They clearly want Jordan to remain at the back tonight, so we’ll see if the kick chase can handle him.
They will want to improve their contestable game (and should with the replacements) as they didn’t do to well in the air (lucky for them neither did NZ).
Really interesting to see why side of the opinions the outcome of all these changes will swing on. They really missed some class in last weeks group imo, so they should be better this week. Might be hard to quantify that though.
The playing stats you’ve shown are exactly the reason why the RFU has been so desperate, and have now secured, full playing control for the England coach over a season for 25 Test players.
Thanks for this work, it’s huge.
I have a few points though with nuance:
-last season was a RWC season, which always means more games, along with the Premiership Cup for the English players. And as expected, apart from a few Irish high achievers (especially the Munster ones), Leinster players were overall well rested. And good for them! Could Doris’ last longer season have an impact on his injury that ruled him out of the Lions tour?
And although I didn’t recheck every players on the list, I looked at the ones that had the highest figures. The numbers in the season before and the one after are usually different. So on an average of all seasons time, that might be different.
Again, saying that other nations push their players to the limit doesn’t seem like a flex to me. If players are tired with no gas, get injured and miss half of the next season, that’s not a good input for a game, apart from placing superstars on the poster. In football, the story of superstars coming in the World Cup with no gas is very common.
-there is a cumulative aspect of games: having one season at 30+ games could be balanced with other seasons at 25/27, even with tours.
-many players from the C team were (Baille/Barré) or are injured (Tatafu, Gazzotti, Ollivon, Jalibert). So that quite conveniently lowers the bar, while still being unrealistic, as they would not tour anyway 🙃
Call it as I see it, without fear or favour…
Ps care to quote me on exactly where I “was all about how Ireland were going to smash England and revelling in the prospect!”? Not holding my breath because you can’t!
Its really hard to work out where his allegiances lie.
He talks like an Englishman with a sneer in the background, but in that convo he was all about how Ireland were going to smash England and revelling in the prospect!
Then more recently he’s into trashing Leinster and the IRFU whenever he can… Go figure.
You frequently attempt to!
It’s not my place to speak for Nick…
Ed, why is that people who can’t take advice always insist on giving it…
For some one of your talents, yes!
I do remember the Twicker’s comment being along the lines of they’ll live with it, they still have a championship to win the next week.
I actually thought Ed was Irish on that basis. That’s how wild and all over the place he’s predictions were/are!
The 6Nations should never be a farmers comp where a team can win 3 in a row (France look good though) but back-to-back slams would have been a fine achievement for that Irish team and they were within a whisker of it. England deserved it though on the day.
Ireland didn’t recover from it and were extremely shaky and unconvincing against Scotland in the final round, Scotland even literally handing them 7 PTS.
Maybe Ed was out in temple bar on the rip? Wearing his Sexton Jersey and arguing with himself in the middle of the street?
There we go, you see NB could learn from you here ike! A man that can, occasionally at least, own it when the case has been made.
And yes, pretty sure cj will have the freedom of Ireland anytime he wants it…
Ed knows! We’re lucky to have you! 😁
I remember it well, although I just browsed the pages then. I was too afraid to join in.
He has to be English although he seems to hate every team equally. Even his own?
If he’s not English, it means he is unaffiliated which should prevent him from rinsing others for being unaffiliated. Obviously, it doesn’t stop him.
Even money he is an AI algorithm albeit good craic.
Alright, it’s the family farm. He can come back any time though.
I’ll pick him up from the airport. The least I can do for him after all those English men he folded in two.
Nick! Ed is on a mission to save Irish rugby!
It’s very good of him.
Revisionist bs! The difference in ko times meant Ireland were already celebrating before England started.
Yes you did correctly predict England for third since I’m happy to go with the accuracy of what happened, unlike you, but I didn’t say anything about Ireland ‘not being bothered at twickers’. I know the wider history far too well for that!
Ps no comment on you ridiculing my Galthie could be a tyrant comment and then writing about it?
Pps you also predicted my account would be gone before the end of that tournament, how did that one go…?