To limber the sharp teeth of the Springboks, Saturday night at the Stade de France, the tricolor staff relies heavily on his pair of halves formed by Baptiste Serin and Camille Lopez. Bordeaux and Clermont have the keys to the truck during the November tour. Their mission is delicate as the hinge of the XV of France creaks for ages. Injuries, molds or choices, the hardest among the Blues is to avoid ejection seat less than a year of the World Cup in Japan.
Go know but it may be a good sign! The last time that Baptiste Serin and Camille Lopez were reunited, it was for a benefactor association with the key to a Homeric victory against Wales (20-18) in the Tournament of the 6 Nations. Since then, in a year and a half, a lot of water has flowed on the umbrellas opened by supporters of the XV of France.
Jacques Brunel has taken over from Guy Novès, Baptiste Serin has progressively removed from radar and Camille Lopez lost a year by scooping an ankle-fibula fracture in October 2017 during a European Cup match with his Clermont club face Northampton. Today, facing South Africa, the duo will try to put oil on a hinge that never stops creak.
The countdown to the 2019 World Cup
"I expect them to influence our game," said Jacques Brunel ahead of the game. Serin and Lopez have carte blanche for this return to their future tricolor: " At this position, we need that they find a complicity, that their communication works in both directions. It's actually the whole team that needs to speak the same language, while there are only eleven matches left before the World Cup in Japan.
Lopez Brunel's sixth opener in one year!
Serin and Camile Lopez symbolize the inconstancy of a XV of France unable to find a base. Since Brunel was vested with full powers by Bernard Laporte, he has already called upon five scrum-halfs (Morgan Parra, Baptiste Serin, Maxime Machenaud, Antoine Dupont and Baptiste Couilloud) and five openers (Antoine Jalibert, Lionel Beauxis, François Trinh-Duc, Jules Plisson and Anthony Belleau). Family Lopez will be the sixth opener. If we add that Sebastien Bézy was recalled to the group in Marcoussis a fortnight ago, the total addition amounts to twelve elements at the hinge when only eight matches were played.
There is at least one mitigating and overwhelming circumstance: injuries. In the first match of the Brunel era, in February the evil eye was invited to the Stade de France against Ireland. Short defeat at the end of the match, Jalibert on a stretcher, then Dupont ... In turn, Couilloud, Machenaud, Parra were hit by the spell.
" How would you like to install a hinge over time?"
Back in blue, Camille Lopez has had time to make a reason: "When so many injuries follow one another, how do you install a hinge over time? It's always the same problem. I only have 16 selections. However, the first date anyway in 2013. "See what has just happened to Morgan (Parra)," says the Basque opener Clermont. He was in great shape but was injured just before joining us at Marcoussis. I'm sad for him because he deserved this return in blue. Besides, he would have helped me ... "
Picamoles: "It will hit hard!"
Lopez must have found automatisms with a Serin to the revival. After promising beginnings, the Bordeaux-Bègles half-scrum had misplaced its fluid, no doubt by excess of zeal. Machenaud, Dupont, Couilloud, Parra had passed him in front. It should be that he was the first person in charge: " By beating my head against the wall to try to do well, I lost what was my strength: that is to say to play and not to ask myself question. That's what I tried to redo at the beginning of the season and I see that it works. "
Poirot: " Baptiste does not hesitate to sting" fat "
More liberated, the elf has also taken the thickness. "He is more involved in the leadership , supports his teammate Jefferson Poirot Bordeaux, holder against the Springboks. Baptiste does not hesitate to sting the "fat" when it is needed. He plays confidently, released. What annoys me already is that he will leave us at the end of the season ... " Serin has indeed recently responded to the fog horns coming from the harbor of Toulon.
Its horizon in the meantime is wet, because barred by a curtain of rain on the Paris region. With his friend Lopez, it will not be an evening conducive to chisteras or other sparks except in rucks collisions. "The goodwill of the Boks, we know, is the physical challenge," says Lopez. In short, at the hinge, it will smell more oil draining than olive oil ...