It’s a date that comes back every year and that the Blues would like to make people forget: on February 21, 1981, France won in Leeds against England (5-1) before suffering 22 defeats in a row, including a stinging 64-0 conceded last year by a heavily revamped French team, without its main Super League players.
Eleven Catalan Dragons
This year, when it’s time to meet the English at Ernest-Wallon (6 p.m. on Via Occitanie), the situation has changed. As the French Rugby League Federation celebrates its 90th anniversary, coach Laurent Frayssinous and his staff were able to field an ultra-competitive team with sixteen Super League players, including eleven from the Catalan Dragons and a young winger Enzo Griffier, who is playing with the Sydney Roosters U19s.
« We have a quality group with experienced players like Benjamin Garcia, Théo Fages, Julian Bousquet… explains Frayssinous, who will rely on these Dragons executives, but also on Mickaël Goudemand (Leeds) or Hakim Miloudi (London). To make the team, it took complicated discussions, real reflection, but it’s positive. »
“We need to put the French team back on the world stage. We want to make an impression.”
Laurent Frayssinous, coach of the Blues
Faced with George Williams and his partners who were dragging their feet at the idea of coming to France, in the middle of the season to face an uncompetitive team, the Blues, who met on Wednesday in Toulouse, and who made an opposition on Thursday facing the TO, intend to make a move. “ This is an additional motivation for us.admits full-back Arthur Mourgue, present last year during the debacle in Warrington. We have a much more experienced group than last time, we have expectations this time. »
“We need to put the French team back on the world stagecontinues Frayssinous. We want to make an impression. We are meeting a quality England team, they won Tonga three times last October, they are preparing for Samoa, they performed well at the World Cup but we want to show that we are present against the big teams. »
The French women’s team, who will play against the English in the curtain-raiser (3:30 p.m.), a nation they have never beaten, shares this same ambition. They all want to finally have a new birthday to celebrate.
