French strike back at negative jibes
Things in New Zealand are getting a little heated with the French tourists, after the French camp responded strongly to suggestions of French negative play during the first Test last weekend.
Thomas Castaignede and Sebastian Chabal both retorted with accusations of a ‘lack of respect’, and said Henry’s comments would be motivation indeed for the inexperienced squad, which was not humbled in the way most people had anticipated in last weekend’s 42-11 loss.
“The All Blacks don’t seem to be happy at the moment,” said Castaignede.
“We respect them a lot because they are a very good team but they cannot dictate to everybody what the other team have to do.
“We’re going to show them on the pitch that we deserve a bit more respect than what they give to us.”
Henry, increasingly prone to accusing other teams of killing the game to ruin the All Blacks’ superiority, has also lambasted the French ‘time-wasting’ tactics, accusing them of feigning injury so as to get their breath back.
“We didn’t slow the game. It wasn’t a tactic, it’s only in your mind. We never spoke about that at training or whatever,” continued Castaignede.
“People were shaken by some of the impacts but myself and the other players would have loved the game to go a bit quicker.
“I hope it won’t be something the All Blacks can speak about next week.”
Chabal also spoke out, suggesting that the All Blacks were abusing their position as the best rugby team in the world.
More criticism was directed at France’s scrum by Henry, saying the French were not engaging properly, but Chabal insisted it was an interpretation problem.
“They can criticise what they want. Because they are the best team in the world at the moment they can say what the other teams must do,” Chabal said.
“We did our best in scrums and I think they anticipate a bit the engagement in the scrum and nobody tells us.
“I can tell you we didn’t cheat once, we tried to do our best, that’s it.”
The tour has been rendered a mockery by the prolonged French season and the fact that the June tours have been compromised by an earlier Tri-Nations because of the Rugby World Cup.
Henry was already angry last week at the weakness of the touring party, which initially had included a third division player, but as Castaignede pointed out, the French can do nothing about it if the schedules clash.
“It’s political problems… it’s not really ours,” he said.
“If you want to be upset, be upset with the political stuff. As players we’re here to do the best performance that we can do,” he said.
“I heard some of the things on the TV ‘oh, the French come with a C team’. If there had been the semi-finals of the Super 14 last November, I’m not sure that the All Blacks would have brought the same team to France.”
