After shipping seven tries to a rampant Scotland, Les Bleus have some serious soul-searching to do. Photo: AFP
Image: AFP
France’s supporters will be hoping that their team’s collapse in Edinburgh at the weekend was an aberration, or as Aristotle originally said, “one swallow doesn’t make a summer.”
But it did seem summery at Murrayfield as the Scots walked on sunshine, putting seven beautifully constructed tries past Les Bleus to leave many a critic wondering if France are as good as they have been cracked up to be.
They were exposed on defence by the speed and agility of the Scottish attackers, and when the cameras panned to the French defence coach, the seasoned Shaun Edwards, he had a face of thunder. Many a Northern Hemisphere pundit has suggested that France have an excellent chance of knocking the Springboks off their perch in Australia next year, but the ease with which they were dispatched by the Scots suggests otherwise.
Between now and the next Rugby World Cup, the Springboks will almost certainly lose a match or two, but I can’t see them shipping 50 points and seven tries in a match.
France will rebound from this loss, and maybe it is not a good thing (unless you are French) that they have been brought back down to earth and will face the riot act this week from Fabien Galthié as they prepare for England on Saturday.
Of course, the French will be strong contenders for the title in Australia, but the dark horse slipping out of the bunch as they spread out for the sprint to the finish has to be the All Blacks.
The “under new management” sign is up. Dave Rennie is sweeping aside the rubble from the Scott Robertson era, and a new structure, with stronger foundations, is going up. Rennie says that in 18 months it will be the finished article.
What makes Rennie a different bet to Robertson? A strong element in the Rennie CV presented to NZ Rugby is his varied experience of coaching outside of New Zealand.
A hindsight weakness in Robertson is that he coached only one team — the Crusaders — before taking the All Blacks job. Yes, the Crusaders were mighty, but it is now apparent that what worked at Super Rugby level can come a cropper on the international stage.
Apart from Rennie’s three seasons with the Wallabies — during which they won three of four matches against the Springboks — the 62-year-old coached the Glasgow Warriors for three years in European competition and is now coaching in Japan at the Kobe Steelers.
He cut his coaching teeth in New Zealand with the Hurricanes and Manawatu, and won three Junior World Championship titles with the NZ Under-20 team before winning multiple Super Rugby titles with the Chiefs. Rennie, interestingly, played centre and wing for Wellington and has an international cap for the Cook Islands.
It is his experience of different playing cultures that makes him a good bet for the All Blacks. It is worth noting that the two All Blacks coaches who won World Cups this century — Graham Henry and Steve Hansen — both had long stints coaching Wales in the Six Nations. Rassie Erasmus has often said that he doubled his coaching wisdom when he spent two seasons with Munster.
“I have not coached in New Zealand since 2017. I have been gone for eight years and have no relationship with the players — no bias, no favourites. It’s a clean slate for them, as it is for me.” — Dave Rennie
A hungry All Blacks team, where every player understands that he has no laurels to sit on with the new and well-travelled coach, is a scary proposition indeed.
* Mike Greenaway is a senior rugby reporter at Independent Media and a contributor on our Last World on Rugby podcast on our YouTube channel, The Clutch.