Injuries, away day blues and not a kicker in sight will stop resurgent France getting back in the Six Nations mix
France are without their best player in Wesley Fofana and their two starting props, while Guy Noves has managed to select a squad without a single recognised kicker
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Your support makes all the difference.Six years, two defeats by Italy, one Wooden Spoon and, most alarmingly, zero Six Nations titles. This decade has not been kind to French rugby despite starting it off with a Grand Slam success in 2010, and although Guy Noves finally looks to be forming something close to a functioning squad, 2017 looks set to promise more frustration than jubilation.
That’s not because France are playing badly though – far from it actually. Their autumn record showed one win from three games, but the two defeats saw Les Blues lose to Australia by two points and New Zealand by five. Noves clearly has France on the right path and he is finding ways to unlock their best talents, which should spell danger for their Northern Hemisphere rivals.
So why aren’t France among the favourites for the tournament this year? Well, France aren’t renowned for their ability to perform on their travels, having won the Six Nations just once when they have been tasked with travelling to England, Ireland and Italy in the same campaign that came in 2007.
But that’s not the overriding factor this time around. Nor is it because we don’t know which France will turn up, the age old saying that was used regularly in the Philippe Saint-Andre era where unexplainable off-days were a regular occurrence.
This time around, France simply have too many serious injuries to key players to have a genuine shot at the championship, and that’s a shame. At full strength France may have a shot at recording their just their second victory at Twickenham since the turn of the millennium, were they take on England on the opening weekend.
But there injury list is by far the worst cross the Six Nations. Eddy Ben Arous, Jefferson Poirot, Camille Chat, Raphael Lakafia, Henry Chavancy and Wesley Fofana will all miss the tournament, robbing France of their two strongest props and their best player in Clermont Auvergne centre Fofana.
The 29-year-old has undergone an operation after rupturing his Achilles tendon, and it comes as a crucial blow not just because he had been in extraordinary form for Clermont of late, but also because Noves finally ditched his philosophy of playing the talented back out wide on the wing.
Noves’s problem in the middle of the park have managed to get worse this week too. Joining centres Fofana and Chavancy on the sidelines, certainly for at least the first two matches against England and Scotland, will be the recalled Yann David after he suffered a thigh injury in training, robbing him of a first cap in more than seven years.
Yet France may feel the loss of Ben Arous and Poirot the most. Without the respective Racing 92 and Bordeaux-Begles props, the French lose their spearhead in both defence and the set-piece. The result will be seeing either Toulouse loosehead Cyril Baille or Toulon’s Xavier Chiocci lining up against Dan Cole on Saturday. The Leicester prop will be licking his lips whoever the opponent.
Another rather serious issue facing France is their complete lack of a recognised place-kicker, and this one falls at the feet of Noves. Maxime Machenaud looks like the man tasked with kicking at goal for France this year, having taken just 20 shots at the posts this season for Racing, but that's because Noves has not picked a single player in his squad who takes on kicking duties at their club in the Top 14. Six Nations stalwarts - Neil Jenkins, Jonny Wilkinson, Chris Paterson and Leigh Halfpenny to name but a few - carved their trade by letting the boot do the talking. It can prove the difference between winning and losing a match, or a championship, or a Grand Slam.
And so, rather sadly, it appears another year of mediocrity appears on the cards for France. The tournament will be much richer if it were not the case, and they are certainly on the right path, but all signs point to 2017 not being their year.
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