French captain ready to compose big closing chapter

Like most good authors, French captain Fabien Galthie is finding the act of composition difficult as he contemplates his 12-year international career.

"I have the feeling I'm writing the last pages of a rather good book," the halfback said.

"But the writing has been difficult, jerky, and I would never have thought that it would take so long to reach the last page."

After losing in succession a World Cup quarter-final, semifinal and final, Galthie, 34, is hoping he can go one step further at this World Cup.

He made his debut in 1991 and though he has won only 59 caps in that time - by comparison England's Jason Leonard has amassed 106 in the same period - he was at the sharp end of the 1991, 1995 and 1999 cups.

His international career has been marked by two peaks, when Les Bleus scored their famous victory over the All Blacks in the 1999 semifinal at Twickenham, and then to a Six Nations Grand Slam last year.

Galthie and his side were rewarded by being named the IRB's 2002 player and team of the year.

"Fabien has charisma and the guys respond to that," French coach Bernard Laporte said at the time.

"He is a leader and even though the modern game is more and more professional, you still need a captain to bring out the best from everyone, and Fabien is that man."

Galthie said he enjoyed the challenge. "When the sea is calm, the job is easy, but when there is a storm, you need a captain."

His career reached another landmark in June when he won his first French championship title with Stade Francais.

"On the whistle it was pure bliss, so I decided to go back to the dressing room for a few seconds because it was almost impossible to share such a moment," he said.

Born in Cahors and rugby-educated in Colomiers, an industrial suburb of Toulouse, he played his first top-level game when he was 16, but had to wait 17 years to lift the French championship trophy.

"I would have given everything to win the title with Colomiers," he said. "This club was all my life. The team was under-rated, but we had decided that our day would come."

In 2000, Colomiers reached the championship final but, on the day, Galthie was in the stands, in tears, nursing a broken knee as his team-mates lost 28-23 to Stade Francais.

"I understood that the dream was over, that our team would never be the same and that I had to leave," he said. "Stade Francais approached me and I said 'bingo'."

At international level, his first cap came at 22 against Romania in 1991, and he immediately made the halfback position his own for a World Cup campaign that ended with a quarter-final defeat to England.

Over the next three years, however, he played only eight more internationals. He was initially omitted from the 1995 cup squad, and was drafted into an injury-plagued team before the semifinal defeat to South Africa.

Worse was to come in 1999. France lost 54-7 to New Zealand just before that year's tournament and, for coaches Pierre Villepreux and Jean-Claude Skrela, Galthie was a chief culprit.

They dropped him again, only to recall him before the quarter-final. Galthie responded and France upset New Zealand in the semifinals in one of the all-time great matches.

Defeat in the final against Australia and annoyance at the way he had been treated left Galthie on the verge of quitting the national team, but his plans changed when Laporte became coach.

The two had met long before when Laporte, himself a halfback, was playing for Begles-Bordeaux, who he led to the French title in 1991.

"Fabien was still a kid, but he also was the new wonder boy in French rugby. The media were full of praise for him, while I was branded as the worst halfback in the French championship," Laporte recalled.

"When we met on the pitch, I just hated him. I remember a few halfback-type exchanges that were more than verbal."

But between coach and player, the relationship was immediately cordial and Laporte quickly asked Galthie to become his captain.

"Suddenly, everything changed," Galthie said.

"We prepare more professionally, we leave less to chance, our concentration is better, we are more collective, the discipline is there and with it has come confidence. Maybe our day will come."

- REUTERS

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