The Celtic Manor hotel near Newport looked an unlikely scene for a French revolution yesterday and Thierry Dusautoir an unconvincing mutineer.
Perched at the top table of a press conference, exchanging jokes with Yannick Bru, the forwards coach, who was sitting alongside him, the France captain expressed his bafflement at a report in the French press that the players might have staged a revolt against Philippe Saint-Andre, the head coach, and taken charge of training themselves in preparation for their World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand this evening.
True, red flags were flying above an adjacent outbuilding, but close inspection revealed them to be inscribed not with an inspirational revolutionary motto, merely the name of the hotel chain.
Saint-Andre was not present, having fulfilled his media duties the day before, but Dusautoir insisted that his players were not manning the barricades in defiance of their head coach. “I don’t really understand what everybody is talking about here,” he said. “We are preparing for this game as a team, with all the boys, all the coaches and the manager [Saint-Andre].”
Asked whether the players retained confidence in Saint-Andre, Dusautoir said: “Yes, totally. We are a team and we will continue our work as a team. The spirit is the same since the start, there’s the same appetite.”
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No World Cup would be complete, of course, without rumblings of rebellion around the France camp. Dusautoir was captain four years ago when, at the end of a pool stage in which they had lost two matches, the squad sidelined Marc Lièvremont, Saint-Andre’s predecessor, and played their way into the final, where they were beaten 8-7 by New Zealand. “We had to free ourselves from his supervision,” was the way Imanol Harinordoquy, the No 8, later described the rebellion.
A year earlier, during the football World Cup in South Africa, the France team had staged a revolt against Raymond Domenech, the coach, boycotting a training session over the decision to send Nicolas Anelka home for disciplinary reasons. This week, the sports newspaper L’Équipe suggested that the players should usurp Saint-Andre after the bitterly disappointing defeat by Ireland in Cardiff last weekend.
With a weary sigh, as if he did not have enough on his plate preparing to face the All Blacks, Dusautoir reiterated that he was trying to remain focused on this game. “What interests me most is getting through this round,” he said. “Everyone is focused on playing, to win this game and to still be there next week.”
Whether there has been tension behind the scenes or not, defeat by the All Blacks this evening will bring Saint-Andre’s troubled four-year tenure to an end anyway, as he is due to be replaced after the tournament by Guy Novès, the Toulouse coach.
The clichéd view of French rugby indicates that all these suggestions of discord only make Les Bleus more dangerous. It is a romantic notion, one that gained credence with their remarkable comeback in the quarter-final victory over New Zealand in 2007.
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Saint-Andre has made significant changes, knowing that France must play a quicker game against the All Blacks. Alexandre Dumoulin has replaced Mathieu Bastareaud at centre and Morgan Parra comes in for Sébastien Tillous-Borde at scrum half, while Bernard Le Roux joins Dusautoir in the back row.
Eight years on, at the same ground, against the same opponents, the chances of history repeating itself seem slim, all the more so given the rumours of unrest in the French camp. In this professionalised age, those romantic ideas of chaos trumping order seem far-fetched. A victory for France over the All Blacks this evening would suggest that reports of the death of romance in the game have been greatly exaggerated.