THis great wheel still spins day and night, throughout the seasons, on Borely Beach in Marseille. The price is 2 laps for him and 8 euros for each lap. It is 55 meters high, and from the top you can see the Stade Velodrome a few hundred meters inland. There on Thursday afternoon, France and Ireland were busy preparing for a repeat lap on their home soil.
It’s been three months and 19 days since the World Cup quarter-finals here, and while there are still plenty of old posters advertising the match up around town, the cycle has already restarted and the opening round of this year’s Six It’s time to start. Countries.
At this time last year, France and Ireland were ranked 1st and 2nd in the world, and the match between them was the title deciding match. Twelve months on, they are behind South Africa in the rankings, with France also behind New Zealand in fourth place. Rankings don’t really mean much at this point. South Africa has the Webb Ellis Cup and that’s all that matters, but this change means that while neither of these two teams played better than they did in the years leading up to the World Cup, they still scored more points in World Cup matches. This reflects the hard fact that there is a lack of It counted in the knockout round.
Friday night will highlight how they dealt with that setback, the changes they’ve made to the way they play, and the opportunity to exorcise some of the issues that still remain, though neither team will admit it. You can get a glimpse of it for the first time. They must feel disappointed.
France has spent eight years strengthening in preparation for the World Cup. “We will be scarred for life. That’s part of our journey,” head coach Fabien Galtier finally spoke up last November. “We have all gone through some kind of introspection, first individually and then collectively.”
Ireland are also pondering what went wrong. Head coach Andy Farrell said he started thinking about it as soon as the final whistle blew. “We are the last group to be hesitant to mention and learn from our performance,” says Peter O’Mahony.
“For the last few months,” the topic came up every time he had coffee. No wonder, then, that he wants to forget everything. “We’re not trying to prove to ourselves what happened. It’s not about making things right, it’s about the Test match tomorrow night.”
O’Mahony is captain and one of the few changes to the team. He leads the team alongside rookie fly-half Jack Crowley, 24, lock Joe McCarthy and winger Calvin Nash, but the rest of the squad is fairly awkward and familiar. The most obvious difference is who is missing. Ireland have won seven of their 11 Test matches against France over the past 10 years, with Johnny Sexton starting in all of them. He missed two games and Ireland lost both.
His leadership and goal-kicking aside, Sexton is a cog in turning the Irish offense around, and who knows if the offense will function as smoothly without him.
O’Mahony has known Crowley for a long time and trusts him. “I remember him playing at the Con and getting word that he was the real deal. Fast forward a few years and here we are,” he says.
“He learned a huge amount under Jonny and the other players, Joey Carbery and Ross Byrne. He watched the game, studied the game, analyzed it for hours, spent hours in the gym. He’s an incredible guy who’s also been an extra. He has a lot more to do, and he knows it better than anyone.”
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France will be without captain and talisman Antoine Dupont, who missed the remainder of the Test season to play rugby sevens before this summer’s Olympics, and regular fly-half Romain Ntamak is also injured. However, they have two immediate players in Mathieu Jalibert and Maxime Luuk, who play together in Bordeaux. Gregory Aldritt was appointed captain. Their only real surprise otherwise was the selection of Yoram Moefana, normally a center, on the wing rather than the talented young Louis Vier-Bialley.
Bjer Bialley struggled with high balls in the match against the Springboks, which is why he was left on the bench along with slippery scrum-half Nolan Le Garrec and fearsome lock Posolo Tuilagi. There is a suspicion that this is the case. He earned a late call-up as a substitute for Roman Taofifenua.
Tuilagi is Manu Tuilagi’s nephew. He joined the team as a trainee two weeks ago after the federation was briefed on his eligibility and suddenly took a shot on matchday 23. He’s 19 years old, but you wouldn’t necessarily guess that considering his 6-foot-4 height and weight. The best part of the 24th.
As Galtier pointed out, France are a young team and are still on their way up. They, too, will be rejuvenated by the prospect of playing in Marseille, away from the specter of the Stade de France, which, like Dupont, is earmarked for the Olympic Games.
Parisian fans may be a little fickle, but there’s no ambiguity about the crowd here. It’s going to be a hot night and it’s sure to be a hell of a game between both teams fighting for points.
