.png)
4 hours ago
5
We are running out of ways to describe this. Another match in what used to be rugby’s most passionate cauldron, another dismantling, another humiliation.
France are good, really good, but we might as well have been in Paris, so loud was the travelling support, so gaping the rows of empty seats. The official attendance was just shy of 60,000. Maybe, but it looked and felt a good deal less than that.
More painful a statistic was the score. Another 50-point defeat for Wales. France had eight tries by the hour mark, before the game meandered towards its end. That Wales finished with a well-taken try, their second, by Mason Grady, put over by Louis Rees-Zammit, will be of some comfort, as will a set piece that was rock solid. But a solid platform is the least of your requirements when taking on this lot.
Wales were trading on the exchanges at as much as 175-1 for the win, with the conventional bookies giving them a 35-point handicap. So, no one was seriously expecting anything other than a heavy defeat.
If there had been a chink for Welsh hopes, it might have been the removal of France’s centre pairing last week, the relatively experienced (insofar as they are over-23) centre pairing of Yoram Moefana and Nicolas Depoortère succumbing to injury together with their back-up Kalvin Gourgues. In came the Pau centres Émilien Gailleton and Fabien Brau-Boirie, both under-23, both try-scorers within the first 15 minutes.
France’s three-quarter line, in fact, are all under-23. Louis Bielle-Biarrey, incredibly, is still only 22. He scored in between his mates in the centre. And the other three-quarter, Théo Attissogbe, would have completed the set in the first half-hour, had he not been slightly offside when Antoine Dupont chipped ahead.
Never mind, France had the bonus point by the break, when Attissogbe sent Mathieu Jalibert away. Attissogbe had his try 10 minutes into the second half and another an hour in, France’s sixth and seventh, by which time the agony of this latest humiliation in the Principality Stadium was deepening with every twist.
The first cut came within 90 seconds, when Gailleton was on hand to finish after delicious interplay between Dupont, Attissogbe and Charles Ollivon. Rugby looks so easy when played with such class by players so divinely gifted.
Wales were nowhere near them. Indeed, they were so far away from Bielle-Biarrey when he caught Jalibert’s cross-kick in acres of space after 10 minutes, straight from a lineout, that one wonders what Shaun Edwards, defence coach of France these days, once of Wales during their pomp, must have thought of it.
Then Bielle-Biarrey stepped poor Dewi Lake with such ease down the left, you wondered if this were sport or choreographed performance. Jalibert looped round Oscar Jégou seconds later, and Brau-Boirie was on his inside shoulder to receive the pass. The 20-year-old debutant looks class personified, already hailed as the next Yannick Jauzion, big and skilful. Later in the match he was joined in the centre by another debutant, Noah Nene, who is 6ft 4in and more than 100kg. And on it goes.
Adam Beard, one of those solid technicians at the set piece, tried a spot of tactical kicking, which did not end well for him. Attissogbe gathered the scuffed chip and sent Jalibert away for the bonus point and a 26-7 lead at the break.
Wales had scored at the end of the first quarter, a tapped penalty by Lake, followed by a close-range score for Rhys Carré.
It was almost a relief when France resorted to something as unseemly as close-quarter rugby, Julien Marchand finishing a lineout and drive for their fifth just after the break.
Over to Attissogbe. Thomas Ramos’s overhead pass sent Bielle-Biarrey clear down the left, who found Attissogbe in support for the sixth try. Then it was his turn to find himself at the end of a Jalibert cross-kick in acres of space.
Ollivon completed France’s blitz with the eighth on the hour. The stadium looked even emptier then. These are dark times for Welsh rugby. It doesn’t help when France are burning so brightly in contrast.
