In the absence of Romain Ntamack due to injury, the Blues staff preferred to trust Thomas Ramos, fullback who finished the last Tournament in 10, rather than handing over the keys to the truck to the UBB opener.
In the injury absence of Romain Ntamack, injured in the calf and forfeited for the three autumn test matches, he must surely have thought that he would have his chance again. It's missed. Fabien Galthié and his deputies chose to launch Thomas Ramos at the opening rather than Matthieu Jalibert, number 2 in the hierarchy of number 10s since 2020. The French staff therefore preferred the option of the Toulouse player, usual back (he claims to prefer this post) but who helped out at the opening, notably at the end of the last Six Nations Tournament.
Above all, the Blues coach favored the complementarity between Antoine Dupont, back in Blue after his Olympic coronation, and Thomas Ramos, who regularly plays in 10 at Stade Toulousain when Ntamack is absent. This is what Fabien Galthié put forward when justifying his choices: “First, it's talent, the level of play. Then, one of the key factors of success is the collective experience. This is one of the essential criteria for winning. In adaptation and the search for performance, we first take the most efficient players of the moment. The level of this hinge is therefore naturally essential in the holder…”
Galthié: “It’s not just the collective dynamic of the club, there’s also the experience with us”
And still slip in a little word for the UBB fly half: “Of course, Matthieu Jalibert matters to us. He has been with us for five years, he performs in clubs. We are counting on him.” The great start to the season for Bordeaux-Bègles (only one defeat in eight matches for Jalibert), who got off to a good start this season thanks to offensive and flamboyant rugby, was not enough to reverse the trend. Jalibert's last outings with the XV of France have rarely aroused enthusiasm. If he had not been unworthy last year during the quarter-final lost against the Springboks, the Bordelais had been in much more difficulty during the last Tournament, during the big defeat against Ireland in Marseille (17- 38) and the pitiful draw conceded against Italy in Lille (13-13), where he left shortly before half-time due to injury.
Even before the start of this fall tour, Fabien Galthié had been clear in the columns of The Teamadvancing that Jalibert “had great performances. With Bordeaux, he is on a collective dynamic. But it’s not just the collective dynamic of the club, there’s also the experience with us.” The Blues coach then underlined regarding Ramos: “We can understand our logic by placing at the opening a guy who played the last two matches of the France team in 10 (convincing success in Wales 24-45 then against England 33-31, Editor's note)who was champion of France with Toulouse in 10 (in 2021).”
I walk a lot on intuition, but first I have to be good in a collective
Matthew Jalibert
The explanation is rather to be found in the opener profile that Fabien Galthié and his deputies are looking for. Renowned for his playful side and creator of breaches, Jalibert evolves in a different profile from Ntamack and Ramos, more managerial, while Dupont is the real facilitator of the game of the XV of France, always present in the heart of the game. The idea of the staff would therefore be to combine water and fire, which is the case of the Lucu-Jalibert hinge at UBB who could be called upon to work on Saturday during the match. At his beginnings during the Galthié era, the Bordeaux opener recognized it himself in South West : “I walk a lot on intuition, but first I have to be good in a collective. Previously, I might have tried to find the solution on my own. But I understood that it doesn’t work every time.”
Also read
XV of France: “Antoine Dupont came back even better”, appreciates François Cros
Vincent Etcheto, the former assistant coach in charge of the Montpellier backs (formerly at UBB), explained that one of Jalibert's problems is that“by wanting to play duels each time, to keep the ball until the last moment to see if there is not a small gap, we sometimes forget the correct passing time and the excess numbers”. The former emblematic opener of the XV of France, Christophe Lamaison, prefers to salute the evolution of the Girondin number 10: “Today’s Jalibert has evolved, it is more mature, more thoughtful, more at the service of the collective, as we see through the French team.” However, not enough to convince Fabien Galthié.
Related News :