CErtaines separations are less painful than others. When the Bleues dispersed, Sunday morning in Mont-de-Marsan, many of them had to say to themselves that the few days of rest which they will benefit until next Friday, the date of their departure for England where they will compete in the World Cup (August 22-September 27), were going to do them the greatest good. An intuition nourished much more by the severe correction inflicted on them by the Red Roses on the lawn of the Guy stadium and André Boniface (6-40) than by the month and a half of intense preparation to which they had just subscribed.
Throughout the week, Gaëlle Mignot and David Ortiz had applied to recall that the content would predominate about the result before playing a friendly match against English women who are both the big favorites of “their” World Cup and the best team in the world today. But the disappointments displayed by the two coaches of the XV of France female testified on Saturday evening of a real disappointment two weeks from the entrance to the Bleues in the competition, on Saturday August 23 against Italy in Exeter.
“Our desire was to play the English to find out where we were,” whispered a Gaëlle Mignot whose force of the voice was covered by the hubbub of the post-match reception room: “Clearly, we are served”. Undeeped for very precisely 1,002 days when they presented themselves on the Montois field, the English were actually particularly generous when providing a punctuated lesson of six tests. Of which four on balloons worn.
The science of RED Roses in the execution of this game phase is well known. But the French women still seemed to take pleasure in allowing them to express it by yielding to chronic indiscipline: 12 penalties conceded in the first period, 17 on the whole meeting. The teammates of Morgane Ménager may have been under pressure during the main thing of this meeting, this defect was quickly prohibitively proved to be David Ortiz.
Slap therapy
“We know that the balloons worn is their trademark, and that it is a much more powerful team. The strategy was not to give them a solution. But when you arrive at the break with 12 penalties, it is tender the stick to get beaten, “moaned the co-co-coating while trying to play down. “We are aware of it, we are still in running. One of our objectives is to give the least possible ammunition to our opponents. »»
That a preparation match sheds light on increases in progression is relatively logical. But 15 days before the start of the World Cup, he should also have to bring out convictions. It’s missed. Instead of launching them towards the competition, this friendly outing offered the Bleues an ugly blow behind the head.
“There is necessarily disappointment. Clearly, we did not show the face that we hoped, ”admitted Gaëlle Mignot before trying to put the scope of this failure into perspective. “To say that we took a hit behind the head would be bad this team. She is resilient. “A proactive speech that the technician, however, concluded in a slightly less removed tone:” If we do not raise our level, if we are not going to look a little more in all the sectors, the rest of the competition will be complicated. »»
This observation, the French had all in mind in Mont-de-Marsan. This is probably the reason that encouraged Manae Feleu adopted the Coué method: “Sometimes it feels good to take a slap like that in the head just before a competition. You can get into direct. His teammates have a week to repeat this mantra before flying to England.