François Ratier, forma female coach of French women’s national team before the third WXV match: “Canada is at its full potential”
The National team coach François Ratier has been discussing France’s next opponent team, Canada, ahead of their match in La Rochelle on Saturday by (17:45 pm). It’s a team he knows well, having coached them in the past international game.
Not necessarily at the moment. It’s a team that i know very well because i contributed to its development, but no, really, we’re very focused on ourselves. That has already takes a lot of energy. But it’s a rugby match, I can make the difference.”
They’re a team that’s currently at its full potential. They showed last weekend that they’re a more dynamic team than England team, just as solid and well-organized. So this draw pretty much reflects their current level. They’re in their second cycle now, having embarked on a new era by following the 2022 World Cup competition. They already reached a first level at the last World Cup competition last year. So they’re definitely quite a bit ahead of us in terms of work and collective experience, that’s for sure.
It’s always difficult for the players. They were remorseful and apologized several times to every teammates. Once the apologies are made and the judgment is rendered, I don’t want to put them down. In the end, they only received three and two-match suspensions card, which perhaps proves that the initial sanction wasn’t appropriate.
Yllana Brosseau is a very good rugby player, at the same level, but with even more experience in everything. So we’re expecting a big performance from her. Then, we had to reorganize in the second row . We brought up Charlotte Escudero, who has already played in that position with us. The organization wasn’t too complicated. Of course, we would have preferred to have everyone available in our team, but well, that’s the case for all teams.
And on the bench, Lou Roboam will cover the position. Yet you want to play her more in the back row, don’t you?
Actually, Lou has played the most lock for the club over the past few years. Of course, we want to move her to the back row because we think that, in the long run, she’ll have more opportunities at the international level. But in emergency situations like this weekend, we made that choice because she’s a specialist in that position. Just because she’s transitioning from lock to back row doesn’t mean she can’t quickly return to playing lock.
First of all, she’s a fighter, someone who never gives up at all. She’s a young strong player, but extremely combative. And we’ll need that kind of profile against Canada game. Also, she’s a player who runs at over 30 km/h. Which means she deserves this first selection. She has what it takes to compete with the best in her position. Now it’s up to her to show what she have. As with all young players, there are many things you discover in matches that are impossible to recreate in training. That’s also why we use this WXV, to showcase young players.
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