After its victory (30-24) against Ireland, Saturday February 12, the group of Fabien Galthié is the only undefeated of the Six Nations Tournament. If its representatives remain cautious before the next match – a regularly perilous trip to Scotland for the Blues – the XV of France has shown an unmistakable strength of character to get rid of the XV of Clover, another contender for the final title of this 2022 edition. coach of the Blues and his captain, Antoine Dupont, returned to the post-match press conference on the lessons of this meeting.
Franceinfo: sport: what is your assessment of this victory against the other big favorite of the Tournament?
Anthony Dupont: It’s a complete match despite this small air hole in the second half. We could have had a slightly quieter end to the game, but we are more than satisfied with the content as a whole. From the first minutes, we responded to the appointment.
Fabien, you told us at the end of the week that this Irish team was admired by the fans, did that bother you? Did you talk about it in the locker room?
Fabien Galthié: The comments about them are deserved, they produce rugby that has been commented on. Afterwards, everyone has their own way, their route, their convictions. We prepared to play this opponent, to raise our cursor in all areas. We also anticipated that not everything would work perfectly. But we knew that if we managed to combine a good balance in our strategy, we would be competitive and it happened like that.
We had the impression that you were a little disturbed on the dismissal phases, how do you explain that?
AD: Disturbed, I don’t think that’s the word. Admittedly, we were in difficulty, but we managed to rectify the situation without changing our organization. We just put on Anthony (Jelonch) to have more solidity. The referrals were very well typed. It remains facts of the game, but which we will obviously have to rectify because these are points easily given, whether it is the try or the two three turnovers that we conceded during these phases of play.
FG: I would add that on two turnovers, when you look at the images, the left prop who is a tackler does not let go of the tackle.
As against the Blacks, Ireland came back very strong in the second period, but the team was able to pick up the thread to finally win this match. Does it show the character, the lucidity of this team?
FG: Against these teams, you also have to accept having weak times and succeed in limiting their impact, which is sometimes violent. It happened against the Blacks, it happened today. We managed to regain control in particularly difficult conditions physically, psychologically and strategically. We had somewhat the same team organization over the last thirty minutes as against the Blacks, which is good for the team because beyond the victory which is very positive, there is the collective experience which expands. We feel a certain collective confidence that permeates the team.
You are the only team still undefeated in this edition and still in the running for a Grand Slam, do you think about it?
FG: Victory, we want to take the time to enjoy it. We have a mini truce before we move in Scotland (February 26, 3:15 p.m.), we want to spend time together. We did three weeks of fairly solid preparation, with the foreign legion. The content of the workouts was very dense to savor. We were able to appreciate the victory against Italy, but this one will do us a lot of good, for all the players, for all the staff who are behind, who work very hard for this team, it comes as a reward. And above all, we will recover well.
AD : We have all learned from the last two editions where we may have lost the Tournament to a defeat two years ago in Scotland. So it’s a bit of a mess, but we play the matches one after the other. Obviously, we play them to win them, we know the challenge that awaits us. We’re already going to rest and then focus on it, hoping that we have something fun to play within a month.