2023-11-08 19:26:37
His word was eagerly awaited. This Wednesday during a press conference, Fabien Galthié, the coach of the XV of France, spoke for the very first time since the elimination of the Blues in the quarter-finals of the World Cup against those who ultimately won it, South Africa. Ultra-favorites, the Blues have since been submerged in doubts and questions but must also quickly get back up to conquer this dream of a world title again.
“When you get knocked out in the quarter-finals, you let the competition take place without you, the players went back to the clubs (…) We had to give time. For me or for us, there was the time of mourning, that of enormous disappointment after four years of hard work, of successful work whether we like it or not, four years of consistent progress, of development,” said declared Fabien Galthié during this press conference at the Charléty stadium.
“I had planned to speak later, rather at the end of November,” he continues. But faced with the insistence, the requests, I decided to speed up the process. I wanted to share this pain and this immense pain, of our supporters, our families, our clubs, the players. I realized how the French loved us, loved this team, experienced the whole adventure that started four years ago. It was almost unexpected to find all this support, this passion around our team. By returning to contact with families and real life, by leaving the bubble, I realized how the French love us. »
“A point is nothing, but a point is everything”, it was with this sentence that he summed up the match against South Africa. Despite everything, he does not regret the strategy adopted: “I would use the same strategy,” he said.
“Having talked about it with the leaders, we spoke quietly on the phone, I think it will be a scar that we will have for life, but it is part of our path. Having experienced many disappointments, it is never a disappointment. Over time, it slowly becomes what we call experience, knowledge. It gives you the opportunity to be even better. We have all done, or have to do, personal and then collective introspection on what we have experienced. »
Fabien Galthié admitted to having since rewatched the match against South Africa “about ten times” to be able to analyze it and dissect it. “It wasn’t entirely good-natured, it was difficult,” he confided. One of the reasons why he had to plunge back into this difficult moment is, in particular, to be able to identify and send to World Rugby the refereeing situations on which the Blues wanted answers. “We wanted to send the clips that seemed important to us to send regarding the refereeing, because we needed answers to the questions we asked ourselves,” he explained. We sent nine clips in total. »
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