In many ways, this France/New Zealand embodies the peak of this autumnal interlude. But then, is the French XV ready or not ready to respond to the fire that the All Blacks are preparing to pour on it?
Put away your Crunchs, your Celts and your Springboks: France – New Zealand is to date the only Rugby match capable of mobilizing the collective unconscious to this extent, of occasionally catching the eye of the multitude and filling the Stade de France eight months before it kicked off. In the eyes of our friends for whom the oval ball is generally nothing other than an Occitan fad or the joyful disorder of a Basque tambourine, there are only the All Blacks to transpose our respectable folklore onto a scene of a larger scale: because the pseudonym of the Kiwis has first of all no romantic equivalent in the world of sport, because the color of their jersey also revives in us immutable childhood terrors or because the scripted incantation which they use as a preamble is an ephemeral blank check for the expression of the wildest instincts, as best they can, contained in each of us.
In this respect, you also agree that the Haka symbolizes such an outburst of violence that it is in many respects indecent that the adversary, suddenly relegated to the rank of witness, cannot retaliate with dignity under penalty of a fine, as the danse macabre gives its performers an obvious psychological pre-eminence. Because we’re not just talking here about a tender rattle meant to entertain the kids or multiply the price of ad breaks tenfold. We are talking about a war song, a call for formal murder, which the New Zealand writer Alan Duff describes as follows: “The challenge, for the thousands of Maori warriors massing in front of the settler, is to kill then eat the flesh of the aggressor. They drink the blood of the shattered skulls and consume the very thoughts of the enemy’s mind . In its principles, the All Blacks Haka has kept this meaning. It means more than murder. And that’s why we win so often.
However, fortunately it happens that the All Blacks are beaten and, over the last three years, the French team has even succeeded twice in as many battles. At the head of the French XV since the winter of 2020, Fabien Galthié is one of the rare coaches to be undefeated against New Zealand and recently, Gaël Fickou, one of the lieutenants of “Galette” in the national team, explained to us why the French internationals are now looking straight at the All Blacks : “In France, today we have players who are just as technical as theirs. […] For my part, I am proud to be able to say that I beat the All Blacks twice (2021 and 2023, Editor’s note) and that I am part of this French generation capable of dominating them. Few people can say the same thing, I think.” In any case, how many New Zealanders would be starting in the French team today? Right prop Tyrel Lomax, probably. Beauden Barrett and his brother Jordie, obviously. Finisher Will Jordan, too. As for whether Scott Barrett and Ardie Savea are intrinsically superior to Manny Meafou and Grégory Alldritt, remains a debate which, by its nature time-consuming and energy-consuming, is not intended to be decided in these places.
The metamorphosis of the All Blacks
So, where does the diffuse, pervasive and frankly unpleasant feeling come from, which seems to have taken hold in our noble kingdom in recent days? Why are Scott “Razor” Robertson’s All Blacks more frightening than last year at the same time, when they opened the World Cup in France before our eyes? Let’s say that there is already this sum of facts that Eddie Jones, the Japanese coach, viciously threw in our faces on Saturday evening, in the bowels of the Stade de France. “The intensity of the Rugby Championship has increased significantly in recent times. The recent results from New Zealand, Argentina and Australia attest to this. These teams are currently superior to those in the northern hemisphere.”
There are also these images, tenacious, tough, of an England that is attractive and yet put to death by the All Blacks at Twickenham… Or whatever the new nickname that has recently been given to this worthy land to save the Rfu from bankruptcy. Or those, fresher still, of the Green Devils bitterly dominated in sectors of play which until this match were their omnipotence and, of the Aviva, a stadium untouched for nineteen matches. “These Kiwis are capable of switching from one game system to another without the overall result suffering,” our columnist Richard Dourthe wrote on Monday. The New Zealanders beat England by setting the field on fire before reduce the sail in Ireland and smash the greens with authority”.
That’s right, son of a camel. And if the contemporary All Blacks have until now come up against this problem – namely this disarming mixture of extraordinary physical means, unreal technical qualities but also near indifference to the delights of collective combat – they have visibly decided to accelerate their molt. So much so that today many of us fear that the French scrum, still deprived of Uini Atonio, will suffer as much in this area as that of the Celts and the British, in recent weeks…
In the French team, there is plenty of talent
And even so, in the name of Zeus? Until proven otherwise, this French team still has in its hold a firepower that the appearance in the line of that devil of an attacker that is Romain Buros has the power to intensify, a freshness which these Neo -Zealanders at the end of the season will be almost destitute on Saturday evening and a few thugs are still inclined to go to war, as Jean-Baptiste Gros, Gabin Villière or Paul Boudehent are the living example of what the faith of the coal miner can achieve, on a terrain of rugby.
So take heart, sacrebleu! May this simple match sound the death knell for an autumnal parenthesis hitherto blocked by the great south! May the new conviction in the offensive chanted by the French team, this appetite for the pass glimpsed last weekend against an opponent in rags and which the monastic reign of “dispossession” had so long stifled, sets Saint ablaze -Denis! May the ghost of the relaunch at the end of the world driven by Romain Ntamack in 2021 and the ecstatic extension that followed in our latitudes now spurt from its sarcophagus! That Manny Meafou has the same impact on rugby from above as he has on the ordinary tasks of the Top 14 or that the phoenix of the hosts of these woods, Antoine Dupont, finally escapes the hunt launched on him the bogeyman across the street, Wallace Sititi! And if all that isn’t enough, the “little ones” have always campaigned for the right to defeat. Provided, of course, that she was worthy…
