France duo out for the season

Not Aussie.

If you look at the whole era though you’d have to say that Farrell probably would have been a better coach for 21 series selecting mainly Irish, and Gatland would have been better this year, giving the team reasonable expectations and no player bias towards what looks like fading Irish players.

I mean if you want to think of the likes of Sione and DVdM as part of the “era” of their rugby. Personally I wouldn’t, but they do matter and where selected.

In first halves in both tests refs did not control Wobblies in same way the Lions. Looked only at Lions, overlooked so much from Skelton he should have been yellow carded in first half. Kelleher sent packing was totally unwarranted.

The match was engineered by World Rugby because the game is under pressure in Sus due to their own football game

The Wobblies 9 got away because he's small but also should have been carded. So much went unpunished and reffed listened too much to Wilson every time he blew against them watch it back.

A player coming in from Fiji has a huge culture shock too but in rugby terms the French attitude probably suits them quite well and they're earning more money than they've ever dreamed of. It's very different from a couple of hard nosed Englishmen stepping in to leadership roles trying to force a load of Frenchmen at a very challenging Parisian club to adopt an entirely different attitude, they were always going to rub each other up the wrong way. Lancaster obviously signed Farrell because he wanted a lieutenant to enforce discipline, the writing was on the wall at this point. At a club like Toulouse or La Rochelle it might have worked better but at Racing no chance.

.. and don't get me wrong this isn't a criticism of the French, I absolutely love France. They're certainly better at rugby than we are right now. It's just two very disparate styles which don't play nicely together and perhaps a bit of a criticism of Racing, there are some deep seeded issues at the club.

Attack/Backs, same thing, Hansen runs patterns and Holland executes skills execution for the backs I’d imagine. Or are you mainly talking how the forwards play?

I don’t know how you cant see all the back passing and looping as different , you’re just calling that an evolution of last years mess? It was absent a lot from the last test as it was mainly a Barrett brothers thing, certainly not polished if that’s what you mean. Just look at Jordan hanging around the ruck, that was a plan, just a bad one!

Sticking with facts, Hansen lost to Ireland (twice) and memorably to England in the semi-final in 2019. All three wins between Ireland and England were among the finest performances in the history of their unions. That's what it took to beat them.

Under Foster they lost the aura. Just another decent SH team. The fear factor was gone. The first halves of the second and third tests in the Ireland series weren't even competitive at times because of their cards and discipline.

If you want to talk legacy then at least wait for Razor to have a world cup first.

EDIT - having your team captain red carded in a RWC final is peak 'poor culture.’

In rugby, France is really something else, with Argentina and Italy

But objectively, although not having won the RWC, France had more success than these 2 latin nations and I think French rugby players, coaches and club owners probably feel entitled to be respected. And respect comes by integrating with language.

I don’t have any stats, but I can imagine all foreign players who became legends all learned French to some extent.

And this is what could make the difference between a player that contributed to great successes (Bakkies) and the one who also tried to get closer to the club and country culture (Wilkinson) at RCT.

I do not know how it was going for international coaches in Italy or in Argentina for instance, but there’s probably an element of showing that you take into consideration the expertise and history of a club/country. And if you’re just a guy who feels entitled while simply coming with his own ideas without adapting to the context, French rugby level and Top14’s aura (and chauvinism I guess?) will not help you get adhesion from players and achieve success.

I do not really think it’s an issue of understanding each other with all possible nuances, because if we don’t get the idea, we could always ask for precisions.

It just seems to be differences in perception, linked to social or cultural factors.

I’ll feel way closer intellectually speaking with a guy that shares my ideas while coming from NZ than with a French guy that sees reality with a different lens. And as much as I’ll want to, I won’t be able to communicate with that guy although we share all the linguistic nuances.

Then again there is a proud celtic history around the North West of England so you never know.