2023-10-03 18:01:00
Since the start of the World Cup, the France team has used the kicking game extensively to ward off danger, but also as a formidable offensive weapon. Same strategy against Italy?
French flair you say, really? While the French XV is in a good position to qualify for the quarter-finals of the World Cup, let’s take a look at the Blues’ strategy since the start of the competition. And more particularly the use of kicking, one of the main weapons of the France team.
A statistic to start with: with a total of 95 kicking games in three matches, France is the second nation in terms of foot use behind England, which has been quite criticized on the issue. Fabien Galthié’s players took this option 44 times against the All Blacks, 22 times against Uruguay and 29 times against Namibia. “We are the nation that has the longest kicking game for 80 minutes in a matchexplained Laurent Labit, the Blues attack coach, in a conference. When teams are forced to carry from very far, inevitably they make mistakes.” This is what happened to Italy against the All Blacks last week. The Transalpines only kicked 11 times in the match, and by wanting to start from very (too) far away, suffered pressure and dazzling counterattacks from the men in black.
Labit: “The kicking game is an important axis”
For their part, the Blues are performing in this dispossession desired by the staff. With Antoine Dupont against the Blacks and for a little more than a half against the Namibians, the French took advantage of the exceptional length of his kicking game. In particular to get out of their camp cleanly, and to often have to defend a game launch behind their 50 meter line. The probable tenure of Maxime Lucu in the scrum against Italy should not change this habit. If the Bordeaux player has a shorter footwork than the captain of the Blues, his precision is just as formidable. “Today, a quality of footwork that Antoine can have (Dupont), Maxime (Funny) or Baptist (Couilloud) on these positions can make a differenceconfided Labit again. With our analysis unit, we like to spend time looking at the teams’ program and we can determine on average how many kicks they make per match and in which areas of the pitch they play. All this analysis that is done, we share it with the players. The kicking game is an important axis, whether defensive with Shaun (Edwards, Editor’s note).”
An offensive weapon
Offensively, the kicking game is a formidable weapon for the Blues. Everyone has in mind the four tries scored after a foot pass (the two passes from Dupont facing Namibiathe pass from Jalibert for Bielle-Biarrey which puts inside for Danty still facing the Namibians and the kicking game over Lucu for Jaminet against the Blacks). “When we approach a match, we always want to hit more than the opponent and above all gain more ground than him, explained the back Thomas Ramos. Even against Namibia, we knew how to be serious. No matter the matches, it’s an area in which we always try to perform well, and we hope to do so again against Italy.” We must therefore expect to see the Blues use the same strategy against the Italians to leave the opponent under pressure and quickly find the lanes and the canes of Damian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey if the opportunities present themselves.
Note that South Africa, the French’s likely opponent in the quarter, used the foot less in their group matches (85 times but with four matches played, an average of 21.25 per match). This is even more true for the other favorite of the competition, Ireland, who have used this tactical option only 63 times since the start of the competition. A different strategy, we will see in the coming weeks which one will be the winner.
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