Until the end, France suffered on Saturday against Argentina, before winning (29-20), Saturday, November 6. A time upset, the Blues finally managed to tame aggressive Pumas. This victory launches the autumn tour of the XV of France, which will continue with the reception of Georgia, in Bordeaux, Sunday, November 14, before meeting the public at the Stade de France to challenge the All Blacks, a week later.
Franceinfo: sport: Are you satisfied with the performance of your team?
Fabien Galthié: It was hard and indecisive until the end. It was important to win this first date. The team hasn’t played since March, roughly eight months. We met for two weeks and that maybe helped us through this difficult match. The Argentines were present. The most important thing is to have played, to have replayed together and to have won together.
As usual against France, the Argentines were fierce in the game and offered a lot of intensity.
There is no game where you go out on the pitch thinking it’s going to be easy. Especially against Argentina, who loves to play France and pose problems for us. We were sometimes mistreated, which prevented us from continuing our actions. They gave us problems on the last passes, and if there were any inaccuracies, it is because they were present and they imposed an intensity that prevented us from concluding our highlights. We took two tries with zero passes, that’s part of the game but faced with an opportunistic team who seizes the slightest opportunity, it allows them to believe in their victory. We were solid because it was a resumption match, after eight months without playing together. It was a game that turned out to be very difficult to win and that was won.
Matthieu Jalibert and Romain Ntamack (the first played opener, the second was first center) were associated for the first time this evening. Why did you decide to bring Romain Ntamack out so early in the match (54th minute)?
Depending on the scenario, we had the possibility of completely changing our composition and our way of playing by bringing in Jonathan Danty in first center. We had that in our finisher bench, we had worked on several options. We felt that we needed to bring more impact and physical presence – not just because of Romain – and we were sometimes roughed up in the clash with their forwards. They were sometimes more present than us in the ground game. We chose to coach several players who were able to bring us a little more aggressiveness and solidity. It’s a match where we had to change the organization in progress.
This first victory launches the fall tour, what do you expect from the next?
It’s a very difficult tour because we played Latins who know how to play us and who come with three months of competitions in the engine. We were already expecting this match. Then we have Georgia. Again there will be a lot of fighting, a lot of clashes. Most of their players play in France, it will be a challenge against a team that we know to be very strong. Then, in due course, we will talk about the third match (against New Zealand), but for the moment we will focus on the rest, ie Georgia.