Despite a hideous pool stage, which was surely their worst
in World Cup History, I just can’t safely write off tournament tips France.
They’re too mercurial to purely put out of the reckoning, despite their poor
defeat against Tonga which nearly put them out – Had Vincent Clerc not kept his
cool they’d be in Paris already – when they went for a scrum instead of a penalty.
Much of the problem with France lies with attitude, and this
is why so much rests on Marc Livremont. His tinkering through the group stages
hasn’t worked but that’s been nowhere near the main problem; His unnerving
criticism of player performances has led the squad to near revolt and his awful
9-10 defensive combination has been brutally exposed in the last two matches.
It should be as safe as houses for England based on that
evidence but there’s reason to think things can change. The relationship
between Livremont and the players has improved of late – According to the coach
they’ve met and had a team meeting to talk about issues, as shown below.
Circa BBC Sport;
“On Sunday they held a "no holds barred' bonding
session and a hard-tackling training session the following day designed to let
off the steam that has been building since the scrappy opening win over Japan.”
Lievremont scheduled a meeting to enable players to speak
honestly, something several members of the squad felt had been missing
throughout the tournament.
"Everyone wanted to say 'I got it wrong'," said
Nallet. "Since we've arrived in New Zealand we haven't had the mentality
to conquer anything whatsoever. "Everyone wanted to take their share of
the blame and tell the others they will be ready this weekend."
France's defence coach Dave Ellis played down the extent of
the internal problems, both within his own squad and those experienced by
England, saying: "I think certain things that have been mentioned in the
press have been taken out of context. "We had a meeting on Sunday and
since then it's all been good, it's been good the whole time really.”
That’s not a cast iron picture of happy squad but it
provides a hint that the team may be uniting, and the two changes that
Livremont has made may be critical; Nicolas Mas will replace Luc Ducalcon at
tighthead prop, while number eight Imanol Harinordoquy starts ahead of Raphael
Lakafia.
That physicality is badly needed against a side who turned
over France at the breakdown on numerous occasions in their last meeting at
Twickenham, but all of this could be in vain if Livremont refuses to take Parra
away from Scrum half; Reports suggest he won’t.
France have the capability to pull out massive performances;
New Zealand need no reminding of their 18-20 win, while they went and beat the
All Blacks again at Eden Park before then going down only 14-10. If that kind
of France turns up, there’s trouble about, however unlikely it seems. England will come into this game confident and seeking
blood; A winning streak of 5 games against a team seemingly in disarray. Their
record against the French in all completions’ including the World Cup is
immaculate, despite the fact that errors have sorted the two on more than one
occasion.
The 8/5 about an England win by 1-12 points seems worthy of
a strong bet, as does the -.1.5 second half now draw handicap, but those would
be contradictory and with the risks of France turning up given that England
have had slow patches this tournament, neither gets the vote here.
The most
interesting price on offer at the time of writing is Sportingbet’s offer of
Below 34 points at 8/5; Since August 2007 7 games have been played and 4 have
gone under that mark, with two of the three that went over doing so by 10, 3,
and 4 points, making unders look a good option, so that gets topped up with under 39 points at 5/6 with most firms.
Advice: 2 pts Under 39 points (5/6 general), 1 pt under 34 points (8/5 Sportingbet)
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