Lievremont applauds 'excellent rugby'
Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:32
France coach Marc Lievremont professed himself to be happy with his side after they moved to within one win of completing their first Six Nations Grand Slam since 2004 with a thumping 46-20 victory over Italy on Sunday.
The 39-year-old former France back row forward - who has been in charge since Bernard Laporte stepped down after the 2007 World Cup - said that while his team had relaxed in both the first and second halves, he was largely satisfied as they head into next Saturday's decisive match against England.
"We are both happy and relieved," said Lievremont, whose previous coaching experience consisted of guiding Dax from the Second Division to the Top 14.
"The players played the match in the right fashion in two similar halves of rugby: the first 25 minutes of excellent rugby and 15 minutes of taking our feet off the pedal."
Lievremont, who has silenced his doubters with this campaign after his first two years were marked by trying endless different combinations using over 70 players, said he could criticise the players for that but he preferred not to.
"If I dared, I would say they were guilty but there was a lot of good stuff going on out there.
"Of course it would have been great to score a try towards the end of the match. Overall, though, we scored almost 50 points against them and we have no injured players.
"The players knew how to manage the match, at their rhythm.
"Yes evidently there were poor moments, we conceded two tries [towards the end of the match after the French had scored six], we missed two penalties and we must have committed a dozen errors, but aside from that we are extremely happy."
Lievremont, a member of the France side that lost to Australia in the 1999 World Cup final, conceded that the Italians had not been the same side that had pushed England hard in a 17-12 defeat and beaten Scotland last time out, only conceding three tries in their first three matches.
"It is true that the Italians were less effective than in their previous three matches. It is nice that the supposedly weaker teams are less up for the fight against us," he said.
"Maybe the France team do what it requires to put them on the back foot.
"The first 20 minutes of each half were filled with intelligent play, of variety, and with good team play in terms of support in the rucks. That is satisfying."
Lievremont accepted that taking on England - admittedly one struggling to put together a proper gameplan and sequence of good results - would be at a different level to Italy.
"Of course, the Italian team is not England," said Lievremont.
"But this French team has shown since the beginning of the tournament that it knows how to adapt to its opponents' style of game, to cope both with the good moments and the bad ones.
"What's more, we have had the intelligence not to get injured."
AFP
Contact Us | Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy | Advertising
