one month before the Women’s Rugby World Cup, final settings for Les Bleues

For 22 minutes, Saturday September 3, the copy was perfect: Les Bleues version compressor wheel, with three consecutive tries, against Italy. And then much more, if not the satisfaction of not having conceded the slightest point against the seventh nation in the world of rugby. Final score: 21 to 0.

For this last match in front of the French public, there are as many doubts distilled in the minds as confidence acquired a month before the World Cup, recognizes Laure Sansus, the scrum half of the XV of France. “We’re floundering a bit, we’re not threatening enough for my taste. We have the chances, but we don’t put them to the end. It’s a detail, but we could have scored more, so it’s frustrating”she explains.

“It was our last game in France, so we wanted to do something good. We started a somewhat new project, with somewhat different things, so we feel that we are struggling to master everything and that we are not as fair as we should be.”

Laure Sansus, scrum half of the XV of France

at franceinfo

“Afterwards, it’s only fairness to find, so it’s by playing together, by making matches, by training, that we’ll be fair”she adds, with more optimism about the future.

The French will have the opportunity on Friday to correct the shortcomings glimpsed last night: a second and final warm-up match, this time in Italy, before the countdown really picks up. “There are not many days left before departuresays Céline Ferer, the second line of the Blue and the Stade Toulousain. There are details to be settled, inevitably, we have changed a few small things in the project. Now we believe it 100%. So I think we need to let go a little more, to have confidence in ourselves.”

“We still have a match to prove all that to each other, we are not desperate, far from it. We have to trust our group, we have a great group. We just have to fix these weak moments, and then fire!”

Céline Férez, second line at the XV of France

at franceinfo

Embarkation for New Zealand is scheduled for September 22. Ten days before, on September 12, we will know the list of 32 players who will be on the trip and who may have the chance to win the title.