The reunion with the Blues and Marcoussis
Fabien Galthié: “It’s always a great joy, a great pleasure to return to Marcoussis. We (the staff, Editor's note) have been here for a week to prepare. We are very happy to welcome our players here since Sunday evening.”
The many packages
“It’s a subject, in French rugby, which is not new. In the eight seasons that I have been at the head of the selection, it has always been THE problem. In this competition, there were twenty potentially selectable players absent, the majority due to short injuries and a few due to longer delays. So part of our potential is, in quotes, at a standstill. But I have already spoken out on this and I think that now is not the time to come back to it. Just notice. It’s the organization of French rugby… Our best opponents, because I know them well, they don’t mind (smile). I know that they know that we undermine our potential before we even face them. For our opponents, this is not a problem. I would even say that it suits them very well…”
Absent for lowered ambitions?
“Since I have been coach, we have always sought to build the best possible French team. And that’s an obsession. So, we switched, as usual, to preparing the best possible French team. Our ambition is intact, even increased tenfold, because it is in difficult times that we must stand up and be even better. And the ambition of the players who have the opportunity to wear the jersey of the best team in France is completely intact. The expectations are there. We came back with 12 points from the southern hemisphere this summer. We are first in the Northern League. Our ambition is to simply preserve it. There is an opportunity for the players who are there to take the place, to take the jersey and to affirm their desire to join this team which is used to it and which knows how to perform, whatever its composition. There is no reason why we cannot continue to perform with a team composition that will surely be different. I am very confident in our method, in our know-how and in the appetite of the players, in the players’ desire to succeed.”
A method in constant progress
“I want to talk about my staff, I want to talk about the preparation method. I have great confidence in our preparation method. We have know-how that we have tested for many years now, in numerous competitions. We will play against the best and we like to prepare ourselves to take on the challenge of keeping up with the best. And that’s the goal. We got right into the working method. We built it, created it, developed it with a single ambition: to make the French team the best possible. We won the 2025 tournament, we won the 2026 tournament by identifying imperfect things, things to improve. And we are seeking to further improve our rugby, our preparation with the tools offered to us and in which the Federation has invested. For us, the subject is there today.”
These imperfect points to improve
“I don’t know if I can tell you about it because we’re entering into strategic and tactical areas… We’ve never left a competition without saying to ourselves that we had areas to improve. After the 2025 Six Nations Tournament, won, we wanted to improve our strategy, our offensive tactics and have an even better team in the transition game. After the 2026 Tournament, also won, we realized that we had progressed defensively far from the lines but that, close to the lines, we had to improve our structure. This summer in the South, we improved this structure without degrading previous achievements. And, today, our ambition is to make our team even better, whether with the ball but also without the ball, knowing that we consider that not having the ball can also be an offensive strategy. We are therefore in the process of evolving our offensive strategy. I won't go much further on the construction sites, but we identify a path very clearly and we stick to it. We have little time, so we know how to do it. We know how to hurry, but slowly.”
The puzzle of new constraints
“I prefer trouble to boredom. So it suits me very well. We try to build organizations, then agreements. We try to help ensure that the clubs and the French team can live in the most harmonious way possible. And, in the middle, there are the players. We really care about their health. But it works both ways. Normally, clubs must ensure that players do not play a certain number of matches in a row. It's not entirely successful at the moment. We experiment. There is a good will, a great will, on the part of the Federation as well as on the part of the clubs, to move towards how to take care of the health of the players and support them in their development. (…) For the staff, it is additional gymnastics but within the framework of an experiment. We try to do the best possible, we look and we will draw conclusions afterwards.”
