offensive festival and record evening for the XV of France against Namibia

2023-09-22 04:15:07
Tricolor winger Damian Penaud during the Rugby World Cup match between France and Namibia, September 21, 2023, in Marseille. PETER CZIBORRA / REUTERS

In the 76th minute of the match between France and Namibia, Thursday September 21, French striker Thomas Ramos rushed onto the pitch at the Stade-Vélodrome in Marseille to convert the try that his teammate Melvyn Jaminet had just scored. The Blues were then 87 points ahead, and it had been a long time since the fate of the game (finally won 96-0) no longer depended on his kicks. Also this transformation, slightly shifted to the right of the posts, could only be a detail.

Read also: France-Namibia: relive the triumph of the Blues with a historic score (96-0)

However, by passing the ball between the poles, the Stade Toulouse scorer wrote this Rugby World Cup group match in the annals of the French XV. By bringing the score to 89 points, he allowed the French XV to erase their record for the greatest number of points scored in an international match. It went back to 2007, already during a World Cup and already against Namibia (87-10). A few minutes earlier, the largest gap between the French team and an opponent, also dating from this 2007 match, had also been exceeded.

Certainly, the Namibian opposition in the evening was weak, reshuffled and even outnumbered after the expulsion of its captain, Johan Deysel, at the start of the second half after a head-to-head clash with his counterpart Antoine Dupont. The nature of the latter’s injury is still unknown, coach Fabien Galthié speaking to the press just after the match about “suspected crack or fracture in the maxilla”. The captain, scrum half and undisputed leader of the XV of France, was taken to the hospital in the evening to carry out examinations.

The decisive return of blue executives

This injury – and the uncertainty it casts over the future of the Blues – is the only shadow on an almost perfect picture: France scored fourteen tries and delivered a demonstration of its dazzling attacking capabilities, resulting in a score unprecedented finale. And unlike their previous match against Uruguay, the Blues obtained the offensive bonus (an additional point as soon as four tries are scored) in the 21st minute. Never has a French team won it so quickly.

“We couldn’t have hoped for better. Very few teams can put 96 points on an opponent who is pushing himself, who is gambling for his life. But we must not get carried away and continue to work,” reacted after the meeting, French center Gaël Fickou.

Did the Blues have this record in the back of their minds, if only to send a message to the competition? “It wasn’t a goal. We just wanted to play a complete match, assured one of the main players of the game, scorer Thomas Ramos. At halftime, that’s the speech we had, that we had to last the full eighty minutes. But it’s also good to write history. » Fabien Galthié had consulted his archives and placed the performance of his players in a shorter time frame. “It’s a special match. I had noted the high scores we had achieved over the last four years, and our record was 53 to 10 at Twickenham [contre l’Angleterre lors du dernier Tournoi des six nations] », said the coach after the meeting.

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