Forget flair, Antoine Dupont and partisan crowds – discipline has become key to France’s success

Discipline, organisation, rationale: not a tricolon that has always had a long association with French rugby. Aristocratic entertainers? Purveyors of mystique and the intangible ‘French flair’? Of course. But disciplinarians, regimented soldiers following orders, nodding obsequiously to authority? It is not very “liberté, égalité, fraternité ”, is it?

And yet, at Stade de France on Friday night, we had cold-hard evidence of a transformation. Not of a team shackled, but of one nuanced; of French rugby finally managing to blend their identity, that joie de vivre, with that elusive pragmatism.

Conceding four penalties in a Test match is practically unheard of in the modern game, but for France, artists of rebellion, to do so in the pressure cooker that was the opening match of their own World Cup, against the All Blacks, with an Anglophone referee, bordered on miraculous.

The four penalties conceded – three in the first half – was the fewest of the Fabien Galthié era, lower even than the six conceded in the 2020 Six Nations victory over Wales in Cardiff. New Zealand were penalised three times more often by referee Jaco Peyper.

After a “slap on the wrist at half-time”, as replacement hooker Peato Mauvaka put it, France knew that improvements in the second half were vital. They came, with France running out 27-13 victors, but what Mauvaka missed that Galthié highlighted was how that first-half discipline laid the foundations for victory – even while Les Bleus were under the cosh.

‘A huge area of satisfaction’

“We didn’t control the game in the opening exchanges, perhaps we were a bit taken by the atmosphere – although we had prepared for that,” France’s head coach said after the match. “As the half played out, we were giving New Zealand easy wins, notably their first try after a line-out in their half.

“But we went in at half-time ahead thanks to our discipline. The [lack of] penalties conceded, that’s a huge area of satisfaction. It allowed us to stay in touch when we weren’t quite at the races and then regain control in the second half.

“Thomas Ramos kept us in touch with his boot. There are always boxes to tick to win a match and that one was essential. It was not necessarily an ‘achievement’ but we ticked the box, and it was very important.”

‘It’s about playing with the referee, not against’

But where has this box-ticking come from? In January 2021, Galthié was an early explorer into a burgeoning French trend of employing a (former) referee on the coaching staff. Former French referee Alexandre Ruiz, installed by Philippe Saint-André at Montpellier as “defence and contact-area” coach, was the pioneer before Galthié turned to Ruiz’s former colleague Jérôme Garcès. Since, Ruiz and Garcès’s comrade, Romain Poite, has joined Toulon in a similar role.

The rewards speak for themselves. The year Montpellier won the Top 14 title under Saint-André, in 2022, they were among the least penalised sides in France’s top flight. And, now, France are benefiting from such tutelage. “It’s about playing with the referee, not against,” said Galthié when announcing Garcès’s arrival. France mastered that against New Zealand.

Garcès is clearly a canny operator; not just a law pedant. In a documentary which aired in France this week, previewing the tournament and shadowing the preparation of Les Bleus, the former referee could be seen giving referee seminars to his troops. Crucially, though, these were taking place in English, which has been identified as a vital area of improvement by captain Antoine Dupont since he took over from flanker Charles Ollivon as skipper.

Of course, the influence of Shaun Edwards cannot be underestimated. The Wiganer has worked in tandem with Garcès on disciplinary aspects that overlap into the defensive sphere: line speed, tackle technique, breakdown. Although the individual aspects of France’s defence might not have clicked on Friday – 32 missed tackles, with a 76 per cent success rate – the collective understanding of when to compete and when not to, pushing the laws to the limit, underscored a famous victory.

France’s game of whack-a-mole stretches back to the dawn of professionalism. As soon as Les Bleus corrected one faltering area of their game, another would fall apart. Rarely, have France managed to get their cards in a row.

But, under Galthié, the blend and balance is frightening; taking all that is unique and great about French rugby and distilling it into something more powerful. Liberté, égalité, fraternité – now discipliné, too.