Six Nations 2010: Marc Lievremonts grand design makes Grand Slam a mere milestone

By Paul Ackford 700PM GMT thirteen March 2010

Looking brazen Coach Marc Lievremont is focuses on winning the World Cup Photo AFP

A year ago, Lièvremont was deliberate a fool, ridiculed by critics on possibly side of the Channel, together with this one, for the relentless tinkering with his team. In 2008, his initial deteriorate after receiving over from Bernard Laporte, Lièvremont used 56 players and even afterwards unsuccessful to solve on a unchanging starting XV. Now, dual matches afar from France"s initial Grand Slam since 2004, Lièvremont"s vacillations are seen by a small as justification of a grand design.

A back-row brazen who picked up twenty-five caps for France, Lièvremont incited to coaching in 2002 when a knee damage cut short his personification career at Biarritz. Marcel Martin, boss of Biarritz, was the man who swayed Lièvremont to give coaching a go, and knows him well. "He is really candid in his exchange with everyone," Martin insists. "He doesn"t give an inch. When he believes in something he will quarrel tooth and nail. I can attest for his dedication, but he is not a man of compromise."

France v Italy preview Winners and losers France"s flakiness offers England goal Sport on radio Bring behind rucking to save the Six Nations Six Nations on Friday nights can be alright, but lets keep them wanting

That stubbornness is executive to bargain Lièvremont. He can crop up unattached at times, finale conversations peremptorily if he does not similar to where the contention is heading. "He is not a statesman in the demeanour of Laporte," concedes Martin. "He is guidance how to understanding with the media, but he creates small mistakes from time to time. Sometimes Marc thinks the questions aren"t interesting, or are written to get him to speak about subjects he would rather not, so he doesn"t reply. Some people get undone when that happens."

If that sounds quite and strangely French, afterwards so is their perspective to the Six Nations. One of the reasons since Lièvremont was means to get afar with utilizing the contest as an extended hearing is that the French Federation, Lièvremont"s employers, are not as well worried about either France finish up with a Grand Slam this deteriorate or not. Their major regard is the 2011 Rugby World Cup, and it is with that in mind that Lièvremont is elaborating a patrol of in in between thirty and 40 players able of handling effectively in the latter stages of that competition, one in that injuries or a decrease in form can rouse teenager patrol total in to main roles.

"Marc is operative tough to furnish a great opening at Rugby World Cup," Martin believes. "Winning the Six Nations would be good but that is not the last objective. The last design is 2011. Unlike New Zealand, England, South Africa and Australia, France have never won a World Cup. We are in between the tip five teams in the universe and have appeared in dual finals, but we have never triumphed and we wish that badly. I won"t contend Marc is being authorised to wander towards the World Cup, but slight changes in citation have been and will be tolerated."

Curiously, France"s pull for World Cup success will have an English change since fourteen months ago Lièvremont sent his dual assistants, Emile Ntamack, who looks after the backs, and Didier Retière, who has shortcoming for the forwards, to Bristol to offshoot up with former England scrum-half Richard Hill, right afar himself coaching in France.

"I knew them from the occasional days I outlayed at Marcoussis, France"s inhabitant precision centre," says Hill. "They longed for to get a clarity of how an English bar operates, and the big disproportion they picked up was that in England the bearing is to engage the players in research and decision-making, since in France the coaching is some-more prescriptive. Both coaches were generally meddlesome in the care groups, where players pretence shortcoming for opposite areas of the game, and I recollect them being vacant at how majority impasse the players had.

"They were additionally penetrating to find out about how majority some-more integrated bar rugby is in England. At Bristol we got the players to write a one-page autobiography of themselves, surveying their interests afar from the game, what their wives or girlfriends did, the names of their kids and so on, so that when we had amicable occasions as a club, everybody got on some-more easily. Retière was rarely tender with that. He pronounced at the time he would take that behind to the inhabitant squad."

No one suggests that France are the accomplished article. In an autumn, fantastic for the craziness even by their standards, France kick South Africa and afterwards crashed really bad to New Zealand, all in the space of fifteen days. But this Six Nations, detached from a spell in the second half opposite Wales when their courtesy wandered somewhat, France have confirmed thoroughness and played sensible, grown-up rugby for prolonged durations with an damage list that has extended as the contest has grown older.

For today"s confront with Italy, Lièvremont has been forced to have five alterations from the side that proposed their initial diversion opposite Scotland at Murrayfield, and in France"s prior matches with Ireland and Wales there were at slightest dual crew changes in in between contests. The usually areas that have remained unchanging opposite all 4 selections are at half-back, where Morgan Parra and François Trinh-Duc are commencement a really in effect relationship, and in the front row that rivals the Italian contingent as the majority mortal section in the competition.

"The success of the front row is really critical to Marc," Martin believes. "He is really majority a manager in the character of Jacques Fouroux [who led France to 6 Five Nations titles in his 10-year reign during the 1980s]. First for Marc is the quarrel in between the forwards. It"s regularly a subject of who gets the round and he creates certain that no one gives an in. in the scrum. His reputation, when he played, was that of a tough man. Not unwashed or ugly. Just hard."

And if it all goes spectacularly wrong opposite Italy this afternoon, as it only might, since that Italy and England are the sides most appropriate versed to shock France up front, that competence afterwards begin the old doubts swirling, Lièvremont will not be concerned unduly. This Six Nations is simply a amiable fling for the genuine battles that distortion forward in New Zealand in 2011.