Despite the desire of coach Jacques Brunel to install a stable frame in this team of France to ten months of the World Cup, players tricolor know that the vagaries of rugby prevent projecting so far back in time.
The penultimate international gathering before the Rugby World Cup, the tests of November have, every four years, a particular flavor. Kind of barometer of the team, these meetings are then far from the simple friendly meetings between nations.
The opportunity for a team to garner confidence before the "real deadlines" , the 6 Nations Tournament first, then the World Cup. For the staff, these meetings offer the possibility of a membership review, or on the contrary a little time to give its "framework" of automatisms.
At 10 months of the World Cup in Japan, which will begin in September, it is towards this second solution that has tilted the coach of the Blues Jacques Brunel. The "backbone" of the French team seems to take shape, composed of Captain Guilhem Guirado as hooker, Louis Picamoles in number 8 and a hinge Lopez-Serin. Add to that Mathieu Bastareaud in the center and Maxime Médard in the back, and you will get a draft of the team that could fly to the land of the rising sun.
The road is long
Guirado, Bastareaud, Picamoles, the hinge ... All elements unchanged at the time of facing Fiji Saturday. A "continuity" that the coach explained in a press conference: "A group is being built, we try to give them this stability, this confidence, to enable them to move forward, to progress. There are few games left, players must live together, to maintain a complicity. "
If the players listed and present for this tour of November know that "the selections begin to count," says winger Yoann Huget, nobody dares for the moment to project beyond the tournament of 6 Nations which will begin in February .
Because the road is long, and many pitfalls. For proof, the absence of Maxime Médard, victim of a concussion after a small minute of play against Argentina, and thus replaced by Benjamin Fall at the back for the reception of Fiji. "We all know that between the group that will make the tournament and the one that will go to Japan, there can be a lot of changes," confirms the winger of Stade Toulousain, all the more lucid after his many misadventures (ousted for the 2011 World Cup, injured for the 2015 edition).
Not insurmountable
Conversely, players not called for these tests in November will be able to play the most beautiful competitions. This is why Rabah Slimani, initially not called and then integrated into the group after the Uini Atonio package at the end of October, admitted not feeling a greater stress: " Do not be called it is not crippling. The same thing happened to me during the November 2014 tour and I had the chance to make the World Cup the following year. Everything goes very fast in France team. "
Faced with these uncertainties, it was ultimately Yoann Huget who advocated the best method: "My experience allows me especially to take every game as it comes, and try to take the most pleasure. We sometimes forget that it is for this feeling that we play rugby. "