2023-09-08 05:00:00
Four years they wait for this day. Four years, since taking office, that Fabien Galthié has planned everything, planned everything, weighed everything and imagined each scenario so that his flock is ready, this Friday evening, around 9:15 p.m.
Four years since the coach with the most famous glasses on the oval planet recovered a tattered XV of France to turn it into a war machine.
Four years, too, that Antoine Dupont’s teammates have played every minute of every meeting, with one goal in mind: to become irresistible for this September 8, 2023.
And that’s it, here we are. The XV of France, which has reinvited itself into the elite of world rugby, will finally launch its World Cup.
And if the Blues (who have won 31 out of 39 games in four years) have set the table, led by the starred chef Galthié, the French public has taken care of setting the table.
In a new craze, and while the support behind the XV of France has never seemed so intense, all that remains for the Blues is to put the icing on the cake.
Came from the end of the world to spoil the party
Except that this Friday evening, the Habs will cross on their way, twenty-three men from the end of the world to spoil the party.
And to those who imagine that, swept away 35-7 two weeks ago by South Africa, New Zealand arrives pale, the Blues will answer that they are not fooled.
Revengeful, determined to silence the Stade de France and return to favorites in a competition they have won three times (the record, shared with the Springboks), the All Blacks will enter the pitch with a fierce desire to overthrow the blue mountain…
This Friday evening, if they want to launch the World Cup as well as possible, which might make them into the legend of French sport, the Duponts, Alldritts, Ollivons and others know full well that they will have to meet, for 80 minutes, the toughest challenge of their career.
So yes, for the first time in their history, the Blues will start as favorites once morest the Blacks, and know that success would allow them to enter the competition by banging their fists on the table. But, before hoping to raise the arms to the sky, it will first be necessary to get rid of twenty-three enraged New Zealanders.
What answer to the haka?
Will the Blues offer an answer to the New Zealanders’ haka, as they did in 2007 and 2011, which is still making YouTube headlines? Ian Foster doesn’t know. But he wouldn’t take a dim view of a French response.
“France has already done it, but that doesn’t worry us or bother us. We appreciate when the adversary responds in his own way to the haka. You know, the haka is part of our heritage, and allows us to connect with each other, but also with our past. That the French respond to it in one way or another will not be experienced as a lack of respect.”
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