Donal Lenihan, Rotorua
PARANOIA has gripped the southern hemisphere big boys with conspiracy theories abounding.
The New Zealand public are convinced that France are about to throw Saturday's long awaited contest in Auckland where the All Blacks are under pressure to atone for those dastardly deeds of the past when the French had the audacity to beat them in the knockout stages of a World Cup tournament.
By and large, as Ireland found out to their cost on successive Saturdays back in August when the French started twenty eight different players against them and still won, there is very little to separate the two sides that Marc Lievremont is capable of putting on the field from his World Cup squad. He has chopped and changed so much over the course of the last four years that even he has very little idea of what his strongest starting side is.
The giveaway, however, is the selection of Morgan Parra at out half. One of the few areas of continuity under Lievremont has been the selection of Francois Trinh-Duc in the pivotal role. Lievremont promoted him from the obscurity of Montpellier at a time when he had barely registered on the French domestic scene. Despite a very indifferent start to his international career, the coach persisted with him and saw something special in him. He has been one of Lievremont's rare success stories and is now a very decent international fly half with a very good boot, a physical presence in defence, strong game management and has a good eye for a break.
How, all of a sudden, Lievremont can justify the selection of Parra for his first ever start at out half in an international test match against New Zealand in Eden Park of all places just beggars belief. Then again they are the French. The New Zealand media have created such a storm around this French selection that heaven only knows what the reaction would be if the French turned around and actually beat them.
Ireland, of course, are the cause of this entire hullabaloo by having the audacity to turn all recent form on the head and beat the reigning Tri Nations champions Australia. Despite that incredible performance and result it appears that nobody is willing to take us seriously given that everyone wants to be on the Irish side of the draw. It was even suggested that if South Africa could somehow manage to lose to Samoa but by less than seven points thus securing a losing bonus point then they too could engineer a passage down Ireland's side of the draw. The whole tournament is beginning to take the appearance of Italian soccer's Serie A with the reward for losing getting better and better.
All of this makes Saturday night's game even more intriguing in my view as I have never seen an international test game where one side is allegedly setting out to lose. How will they go about approaching the contest? Will there be no pushing in the scrums by the French? Will they refuse to contest lineout ball, pull out of tackles or offer up the breakdown to Richie McCaw and company uncontested. Who knows? Either way it should make for compulsory viewing.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/mAcyzFfhQ38/post.aspx
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