72 2GM Thursday December 3 2020 | the times
Sport
being a decent human you want to buy
into and work for. People bought into
the fantastic rugby we played, not the
culture or environment he would
provide.”
And yet this is the man who has final-
ly dragged France back from a decade
of epic underachievement. He has
brought joy back to the French side and,
in next to no time and against both odds
and expectation, he has brought them
comparative success.
When he took over in January, he
axed 22 of the 36 players France had
used in the World Cup and selected a
squad so inexperienced their average
age was 24. Most commentatorsCompetitors at the Tokyo Olympics
next year will have to return home
immediately after their events rather
than indulge in the usual post-Games
partying, organisers have warned.
A 54-page report outlining how the
Games can go ahead even if the
coronavirus pandemic is not under
control by the new start date of July
2021 has stated a number of require-
ments for athletes and spectators.
Athletes will need to provide a nega-
tive Covid test taken less than 72 hours
Olympics
Martyn Ziegler Chief Sports Reporter
will be able to order food and drink via
an app, with table service replacing the
usual bars. There will be no mixing
between socially distanced tables and
facemasks must be worn when walking
around the venue. The organisers also
warned that anyone indulging in “foot-
ball-style” chanting may be thrown out,
but they have tried to lighten the mood
by permitting Christmas jumpers.
It has also been confirmed that 1,000
fans will be allowed to attend Anthony
Joshua’s heavyweight fight against
Kubrat Pulev at the SSE Arena at
Wembley next week, with tickets
ranging from £100 to £1,000.punishments for non-compliance with
health rules. All athletes must sign up to
a code of conduct that includes avoid-
ing speaking loudly, no physical contact
with others and wearing masks when
not training or competing.
“It will be simple rather than festive,
but I hope it will be something moving
that encourages people through the
power of sport,” Muto said.
Officials have not yet announced
how competition rules would be affect-
ed if an athlete contracted coronavirus
during the Games. Penalties for
breaking the Covid rules are also yet to
be determined.Athletes face party ban at Tokyo Games
before arriving in Japan and will be
tested “every 96 to 120 hours” during
the Games. Spectators may also be
required to take tests before travelling,
but a final decision on the number of
overseas fans will be made in the spring.
Toshiro Muto, Tokyo 2020’s chief
executive, confirmed that the tradi-
tional partying by athletes after their
events would not be permitted. He said:
“We want to be considerate to the ath-
letes, so the Olympic village doesn’t get
too dense. After the Games are finished
we want the athletes to go back home.”
Competitors will also face restric-
tions on mingling, and potentialGalthié’s approach
has paid dividends
for France’s squad
One of the more surprising aspects of
the impressive rise of the new genera-
tion of Les Bleus is that it has been
overseen by a coach with a reputation
as one of the worst man-managers in
the game.
This is Fabien Galthié, the 51-year-
old former France captain so revered in
the national game that, in his days as
coach at Montpellier, when the team
bus pulled up at opposition stadiums,
he was the one surrounded by fans ask-
ing for autographs. And the adulation
played so completely to his ego that he
would let his players go off to work and
he would actually stay around to sign.
Jim Hamilton, who played in that
Montpellier side, calls him “the
poisoned genius”. John Beattie, also
from that side, said that “a lot of people
had their confidence destroyed, needed
to get out, or were bullied”.
Dave Attwood, who played under
him at Toulon, is kinder: “A lot of people
would go, ‘He’s crazy, he’s never straight
with me.’ But those were often the
people who were resolutely uninterest-
ed in learning the language.”
Attwood certainly has some sympa-
thy with Galthié for the task he faced at
Toulon, a club that would stockpile
world-class players from around the
globe. Managing a group like that
brings its challenges: if you have a fistful
of World Cup winners in your squad, to
what extent should you be telling
them what to do?
“If,” says Attwood, “Ma’a Nonu
stops a training session and says,
‘This is rubbish, let’s do it different-
ly,’ Fabien wouldn’t take it well.”
So there is vanity, here, in this
suave, well-dressed man, and a
sense that he wants to be in
charge. It wasn’t dissimilar at
Montpellier, where he also
had a high-quality squad.
Yet, Hamilton says: “You
were told what to do, it
was not a collective
approach to what we
wanted to do.”
Hamilton adds
that Galthié ran a
club that was sub-standard
in various essentials:
physio, nutrition, load
and body manage-
ment. At Toulon, the
players also thought
it strange that, on
international
weekends, his con-
tract allowed him to
miss their matches
to do TV commen-
tary.
In a recent
BBC interview,
Beattie said: “He
struggled withWorld Cup final pain fuelling
Watson’s desire to beat French
Owen Slot
Chief Rugby
Correspondent‘Poisoned genius’ who
restored France’s pride
snorted in derision. Yet France beat
England and lit up the Championship.
For the Autumn Nations Cup final
against England on Sunday, he has
been forced by circumstances to select
a squad that is less experienced still.
Nevertheless, the key word here is
potential: Galthié has galvanised a
group that you can see, already, will be
capable of winning the next World Cup.
With temperament and a manner
like his, how has he done it?
The answer lies primarily in the dif-
ference between coaching at club level
and country. That in-your-face intensi-
ty that players at Montpellier struggled
with is not so unbearable in the short
bursts that comprise an international
window.
Attwood describes Galthié as being
“as stereotypically French as I can
imagine”, and by that he means “very
emotive, very passionate — his pre-
match talks were all about letting out
your inner spirit to let it dance on the
pitch”. Furthermore, he can be very
much the man in charge and mould the
team as he likes. It is here that his rugby
brain really comes into its own. As
Beattie said: “He’s the best technical
coach I worked with.”
He has also learnt, or been forced to
learn, from the past. It is not the Fabien
show any more. Indeed Galthié will
only do one media engagement a week.
It could hardly be the Fabien show
anyway, because of the quality of the
staff that he has recruited. This was
partly his work, partly that of Bernard
Laporte, the president of the French
federation, and then Raphaël Ibañez,
the former captain recruited as team
manager.
The skills coaches are all of a high
quality. The strength and conditioning
department has been transformed. The
most notable arrival was Shaun
Edwards, formerly the Wales defence
coach.
Players going into camp with the
national team used to say that the
quality of coaching dipped compared
with when they were at their clubs.
Now they say it is the other way round.
In January, when this coaching group
had been assembled, Galthié hosted
them all for three days in Mongesty, the
village in the southwest where he was
raised. The idea was to stage a think-
tank where they would establish what
they wanted to achieve and how they
were going to do it.
Galthié has tried to create an envi-
ronment where you are not playing for
Fabien Galthié, you are playing for
France. Despite all that has gone
before, it seems to have worked so far.Anthony Watson says that he may
never get over losing the World Cup
final last year but is using the hurt
of that loss to South Africa as fuel to
beat France in the Autumn Nations
Cup final on Sunday.
“I don’t think the lads will be
short on motivation,” the 26-year-
old Bath back-three player said. “We
lost to France in the Six Nations,
which obviously helps the
motivation, we also lost the last final
we played in.”
The distinct similarity between
the World Cup final and Sunday at
Twickenham is they are both finals
in which England are, or were,
heavily tipped to win.
“Putting yourself in finals is where
you want to measure yourself as a
player,” Watson said. “It’s the
highest pressure game you can play
in and it’s a real test of you. It’s a big
deal, irrelevant of how it’s portrayed
and irrelevant of all the talk about
what team France are putting out.”
The World Cup final, in Japan last
November, still looms large for
Watson. “I’m not going to say I’ll
ever get over it because I don’t
think I ever will because of the
amount of hard work that went into
getting in that position that we were
in and falling at the final hurdle,”
he said. “We felt very confident
going into the game. It’s difficult
to put your finger on exactly
what went wrong.”England are therefore trying to
use Sunday’s game as a focus for
performing on big occasions. “We
haven’t focused directly on the
tactics of the World Cup final, more
that we were favourites, that we
didn’t do what we said we were
going to do in the week. There were
issues with the training week,” he
said.
Watson also revealed that these
were minute issues “that probably
should have been spoken about that
we didn’t speak about. It was
probably just an edge, those 1 per-
centers in training. It was tough.”
Billy Vunipola said that England
were looking forward to getting fans
back and that the 2,000 allowed to
attend Twickenham on Sunday was
a decent start.
“When people are there, we want
to entertain them,” the No 8 said.
“It’s a bit like when you were
younger and the girls used to turn
up to PE and you always wanted to
show off.”
6 Brett Gosper, the World Rugby
chief executive, is to step down next
month when he will take up a role
as head of the NFL in Europe and
the UK. Gosper’s nine-year spell as
head of the sport’s global governing
body led to sevens returning as an
Olympic sport and the Japan World
Cup last year being the first time
that the tournament was staged in
Asia. Alan Gilpin, the chief
operating officer, will take charge
until a replacement is appointed.Owen SlotBaptiste
Couilloud U
Age 23 Position Scrum half
Club Lyo n Caps 4
A sniping scrum half, he will be
France’s third captain of the autumn
in what will be his first start for
the national side. He already
captains Lyon and the France
coaches clearly have faith
in his leadership
potential.Gabin
Villière W
Age 24 Position Wing
Club Toulon Caps 1
A former France sevens player, he
has the speed and quickness of step
you’d expect. His try against Italy at
the weekend, when he sprinted 40
metres as the defence was re-
assembling after a lineout,
showed what damage
he can cause.U
halfwill be
autumn
rt for
ady
ance
ithyer, he
sof step
Italy at
nted 40
as re-
out,
eU
Les Bleus’
rookies to
watch
No need for a meal to get beer
Darts
Rick BroadbentDarts fans will be allowed to drink
alcohol without purchasing food at the
PDC World Championship at Alexan-
dra Palace this month. However,
singing and fancy dress are banned.
According to government guidelines,
pubs can only serve alcohol if it comes
with a “substantial meal”, but the PDC
confirmed: “Meals do not need to be
purchased to purchase alcohol.”
There will be 1,000 tickets per session
sold, where tables of four from a single
household or bubble from Tier 1 or 2