After seven months of absence, a pandemic and a conflict going back to the Council of State, the XV of France finds the ground. On Saturday 24 October, the Blues face the Welsh in Saint-Denis, the first of their six fall matches. A simple preparation match, a week before serious matters: on this same lawn of the Stade de France, they will face Ireland at the conclusion of the 2020 edition of the Six Nations Tournament, a match initially planned just before confinement.
As in other areas of society, and if it was still needed, the health crisis reminded French rugby of the limits of its own system. Not to say its absurdity. Thus, the Blues will play six games between October and December. Including five duplicates, as these weekends are called when the national selection and the clubs of the French championship play simultaneously.
Normally, the fall tour reserves three games for the Blues. In the period of Covid-19, to catch up with those canceled by the upheaval of the sports calendar, it is twice as much. And therefore twice as many reasons for quarrels between the French Federation (FFR) and the National Rugby League (LNR).
“The best of the worst solutions”
More than usual, the Blues found themselves “The ass between two chairs” between their employer – the clubs – and the selection, as Baptiste Serin (Toulon) turned it. Even if the Council of State arbitrates the “match”. Seized by the league, the highest administrative court rejected the latter’s appeal, which wanted to force the federation to organize only five matches and not six. Without proving him to be wrong on the merits, the agreement between the league and the federation in principle providing for three fall matches.
The discussion included technicians – Fabien Galthié and Raphaël Ibanez on the Blues side, Ugo Mola (Toulouse) and Franck Azema (Clermont) in particular for the clubs – to finally reach an agreement on October 15. On the one hand, the FFR thus succeeds in placing its six dates, that is to say as many televised slots to market, failing to avoid the camera for health reasons at the Stade de France. In return, the league obtains to limit the number of matches for each international to three, and reduces the total of preselected players to 31. Far from the 42 men with whom coach Galthié had embarked so far.
This compromise? “The best of the worst solutions”, euphemized Raphaël Ibanez, general manager of the selection, Sunday, October 18 on France 2. “We don’t really know how it’s going to happen in fact”, noted the same day the back of the Blues and Toulouse Stadium Thomas Ramos, interviewed by the bi-weekly specialized Olympic noon.
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