In the absence of Romain Ntamack through injury, the Les Bleus staff preferred to put their faith in Thomas Ramos, the back-rower who finished the last Tournament as a 10, rather than hand the keys to the truck back to the UBB opener.
In the absence of Romain NtamackWith a calf injury and three autumn tests out of the running, he must surely have thought he’d get his chance again. He missed out. Fabien Galthié and his assistants have chosen to launch Thomas Ramos to open instead of Matthieu Jalibertnumber 2 in the hierarchy of number 10s since 2020. The Tricolor staff have therefore opted for the Toulousan, who usually plays fullback (he claims to prefer this position), but who has helped out at fly-half, particularly at the end of the last Six Nations Tournament.
Above all, the Les Bleus coach favored the complementarity between Antoine Dupontback in blue after his Olympic triumph, and Thomas Ramoswho regularly plays as a 10 for Stade Toulousain when Ntamack is absent. This is what Fabien Galthié said when justifying his choices: “First of all, it’s the talent, the level of play. Then, one of the key factors for success is collective experience. It’s one of the essential criteria for winning. When adapting and striving for performance, we start with the best players available at the time. The level of this hinge therefore naturally imposes itself as a starter…”
Galthié: “It’s not just the club’s collective dynamic, it’s also the experience we’ve had with them.”
And a word to the UBB fly-half: “Of course Matthieu Jalibert is important to us. He’s been with us for five years, he’s performing well at club level. We’re counting on him.” Bordeaux-Bègles got off to a flying start this season (just one defeat in eight matches for Jalibert), but their flamboyant attacking rugby was not enough to reverse the trend. Jalibert’s most recent outings with the French national team have rarely aroused much enthusiasm. Although he played well in last year’s quarter-final loss to the Springboks, the Bordeaux-born player was in much more difficulty during the last Tournament, when he lost to Ireland in Marseille (17-38) and drew with Italy in Lille (13-13), coming off injured shortly before half-time.
Even before the start of this autumn tour, Fabien Galthié had been clear in the columns of the French newspaper L’Equipearguing that Jalibert “has put in some great performances. With Bordeaux, he’s part of a collective dynamic. But it’s not just the club’s collective dynamic, it’s also the experience he’s had with us.” At the time, the Les Bleus coach stressed the following about Ramos: “We can see our logic in putting a guy in the opening who played the last two games for the French team in 10 minutes. (convincing wins over Wales 24-45 and England 33-31, NDLR).who was French champion with Toulouse in 10 (in 2021).”
I work a lot on intuition, but first I have to be good in a team.
Matthieu Jalibert
The explanation lies more in the profile of opener that Fabien Galthié and his assistants are looking for. Renowned for his playfulness and ability to create gaps, Jalibert’s profile differs from that of Ntamack and Ramos, who are more managerial, while Dupont is the real animator of the XV de France, always present in the heart of the game. The staff’s idea would therefore be to combine fire and water, as is the case with the Lucu-Jalibert hinge at UBB, who could be called upon to work during Saturday’s match. On his debut under the Galthié era, the Bordeaux opener admitted as much himself in Sud Ouest : “I work a lot on intuition, but first I have to be good in a team.. In the past, I may have tried to find the solution on my own. But I’ve realized that it doesn’t work every time.”
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Vincent Etcheto, Montpellier’s former assistant backs coach (who also played for the UBB), explained that one of Jalibert’s problems is that he’s not the best player in the world.“by trying to play every duel, keeping the ball until the last moment to see if there’s a small gap, we sometimes forget about good passing time and overhangs”. Christophe Lamaison, a former emblematic opener for the XV de France, prefers to praise the development of Gironde’s number 10: “The Jalibert of today has evolved, he’s more mature, more thoughtful, more at the service of the collective, as we see through the French team.” Not enough, however, to convince Fabien Galthié.