The XV of France falls with honors – Sports.fr

After several weeks of training, France has found the taste of the competition. The Blues fell against England (19-14) Saturday in Twickenham. For their first game of preparation, a month of the World Cup, they delivered a rather successful performance but failed to convert their dominance phases.

The 100th history crunch has not smiled at the XV of France. This first preparation match against England, to one month’s World Cup, which it is the host country, has done little to El Tri. They bow 19-14 Saturday in Twickenham, a week before the second leg at the Stade de France. The Blues were expected after long weeks of training, where they performed a physically oriented work. But the rise of the Iseran mountain biking or archery is not enough to judge the potential of a team.

These hours of hard work have forged anyway undeniable cohesion the France group, for 10 minutes, asphyxiated the XV de la Rose (84% ownership). The Blues have captured the ball and failed twice to cross the try line by Brice Dulin and Sofiane Guitoune. Philippe Saint-André The players have not materialized this domination. Their hopes were quickly showered by the vivacity of Watson who offered a double, including a superb framing overflow on Dulin (10th and 17th).

Both trials have shown the difficulty of the Blues in the occupation of the land. The third test of English, while outnumbered, also occurred on the wings via Jonny May (45th). The result of the game against a XV of the experimental Rose (only 2 of the last holders Tournament 6 Nations), focuses attention! Do not throw in the delivery of the Blues. Especially they have little touched the ball during their training period and, despite fears of Philippe Saint-André, have kept pace.

El Tri showed great promise in the conquest of the ball and the game key. This is also focused on a ball that Fulgence Ouedraogo scored the only French trial (60th). Before that, Morgan Parra at the height in his role scorer, had allowed the Blues to remain in the race (8th, 25th, 33rd). France has always been in the game but a slew of inaccuracies sealed the result. “There are many positive but too naive and stupid mistakes” , told a lucid Louis Picamoles, the microphone of France 2. The site is still up to a month of the World.