France celebrate during their win over England. Photo / Photosport
France celebrate during their win over England. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
An abrasive but fearless coach, a massive shift in boardroom power, and an emphasis on teenage players has created a perfect storm in French rugby, which could be devastating for the All Blacks at next year's World Cup.
French coach Fabien Galthie has already broken New Zealand hearts once.In 1999, in the World Cup semifinal at Twickenham against the All Blacks, he was the halfback who helped lead the French team from being 17-10 down at halftime to a 43-31 victory.
He's never been afraid to take a risk. In '99, after France scraped into the playoffs, he was one of the players backing captain Raphael Ibanez in a revolt against coach Jean-Claude Skrela. The coaching staff could stay at the hotel, travel on the bus, go to the training runs but control of the side was 100 per cent with the players.
Now Galthie is so revered in France, after a brilliant 2022 Six Nations campaign, he has been appointed to take them through to the 2027 World Cup.
But he was a controversial club coach, sacked by Toulon because the owner claimed Galthie forgot he was "managing men, not robots".
"Humanely, you are worth nothing," the former Stade Francais wing Raphael Poulain once told Galthie, who coached him in 2004. "You should be banned from coaching. You tear your players apart like a dachshund goes after bad bits of barbecue."
France head coach Fabien Galthie. Photo / Photosport
Whatever Galthie might lack in man management skills, there's no question he's a brilliant selector, so daring that when he took charge of the French team after their mediocre 2019 World Cup in Japan, he sacked virtually all their veterans.
In 2020, he swept in 19 new caps, the vast majority from the under-20 world champion teams from 2018 and 2019.
Aiding the Galthie youth revolution are two key elements. One is an accommodation between the wealthy French clubs and the French federation.
French rugby president Bernard Laporte negotiated a clever deal with the club owners where every time a player earns national selection, the club's salary cap is increased for the next season.
There has also been a massive change in owners, who previously wanted to buy superstar playmakers such as Ronan O'Gara and Dan Carter. French clubs now embrace a system where the majority of their players must come from French academies.
The importance the French have placed on their under-20s should be a red flag for New Zealand rugby. We should treat our under-20s as the second-most important male team in the country, at least on a par with the Super sides.
France celebrate during their win over England. Photo / Photosport
How does the under-20 experience benefit players?
Beauden Barrett played in our 2011 world champion under-20 side which featured 13 players, including Sam Cane, Brodie Retallick and Codie Taylor, who became All Blacks.
"I hadn't been in top schoolboy teams," Barrett told me this week. "I had to work really hard in my late teens to get into the systems, and the under-20s were really significant. I'd been given a shot at sevens when Gordon Tietjens was the [national] coach. But playing with the likes of Sam Cane, Gareth Anscombe and TJ Perenara, who had been top-level schoolboy players, was the first real stake in the ground for me when it came to international 15s rugby."
