In the 52nd minute at the Stade de France last Sunday evening, with France leading Australia 16-5, Les Bleus launched their reserve loose-head prop Sebastien Taofifenua off a lineout just inside their 22. He was met with a no-arms tackle by Taniela Tupou, who was penalised.
Antoine Dupont, as he invariably does with that hyperactive brain of his, seemed to make time stand still when tapping the penalty. Tupou was one of five Wallabies who turned their backs, unforgivable for most under-10 sides.
But one other person was on Dupont’s wavelength. As the scrumhalf tapped and went, while everyone else was stationary, Matthieu Jalibert was already in motion. Reaching halfway, without looking, Dupont passed to Jalibert, who had clearly given him the call and accelerated onto the ball.
Jalibert carried deep into the Wallabies’ defence before being tackled on the 22 by Australian winger Suliasi Vunivalu, who was unfortunate to be binned when shunted over the ball from behind by a team-mate.
But it was as if a switch had been flicked.
Thomas Ramos kicked the ensuing penalty and within four minutes Jalibert was running at the Australian defence again, stepping one defender and offloading inside to Gael Fickou who carried hard for 20 metres to the line. From the recycle, Dupont crosskicked for Damian Penaud to catch and touch down with all the effort of someone eating his dinner.
Despite an Australian riposte and removing Dupont on the hour, Les Bleus kept their foot on the accelerator, Jalibert measuring the deftest of dinked kick-passes for Gabin Villiere to score.
Penaud added his second try, and 19th in his last 19 Tests, with one of those chip-and-gather finishes of his in which he seems to have the ball on a string. All was well in chez Stade de France!
After changing his side in their previous three warm-up games, Fabien Galthié had picked his go-to men. A a dozen days out from opening night against the All Blacks, he wanted a statement win by his Grand-Slam winning team of last year.
With one exception, Jalibert.
And that’s what made that 52nd minute incident so significant. Until his ill-timed knee injury a fortnight previously, Romain Ntamack had been Galthié's first-choice outhalf, not least due to his long-held friendship and understanding with Dupont.
Jalibert has been seen as more of a maverick and attempts to accommodate both had been tried but failed. Now, almost four years of planning had to be ripped up, and faith placed in Jalibert. On Sunday, L’Équipe ran a two-page article asking whether the pairing would work.
Dupont reminded everyone that Jalibert had been a regular member of the 23-man match-day squad for much of the last four years and knew the system and the players very well.
And in that 52nd moment of synchronicity, their understanding couldn’t have been any more telepathic than that between Dupont and Ntamack. Furthermore, Jalibert’s performance generally was hugely encouraging for squad and supporters alike.
In that and much else, far from the usual phoney war, the last weekend of warm-up games felt more like the first week of the World Cup itself than ever before.
Full frontline selections, full houses and full-on games.
The Springboks had set the tone in Friday night’s Twickenham full house against the All Blacks, when there was absolutely no holding back from the kick-off, before ultimately winning 35-7. Never before in the 102-year history of the biggest Test rivalry of them all, or in any Test against anyone for that matter, had the All Blacks been beaten to such an extent.
It could easily have been more but for the All Blacks’ resistance and Canan Moodie’s brilliant finish, when turning Jordie Barrett and Richie Mo’unga inside out and back again, being ruled out for a barely discernible knock-on earlier in the move.
Andy Farrell reminded us that it was only six weeks previously that the All Blacks did something similar to the Boks, when the speed and tempo of their attacking game blew the Springboks away as they raced into a 17-0 lead inside 15 minutes.
Yet even then the Boks could take much from the inroads their power game made thereafter, and they brought this to another level with the sheer brutality of their scrum, maul and carries into contact.
The All Blacks conceded 21 penalties as a result, as well as three cards, two yellow and one red, and Scott Barrett is lucky to avoid a suspension given he has previous for this kind of offence, and Malcolm Marx was away from the ball when ‘cleared out’.
The Boks do varnish their game with more flair out wide now, and they’d be mad not too, but there was something very typically macho about their 7-1 split. It’s typical Rassie, always looking to bend the rules or spirit of the game to the Boks’ benefit. Nothing else matters. But there was something less than subtle about it. In the current climate, it’s not a good look for the game. It should be outlawed.
Rarely lacking in confidence, the scale of the win will undoubtedly fuel belief among the Springboks, their media and supporters, that a fourth World Cup is coming their way.
“The Springboks will hammer France in the World Cup final to retain their status as world champions,” wrote the Boks’ former press officer Mark Keohane on the sarugbymag.co.za website.
There is a small school of thought in New Zealand that the scale of the defeat will be a wake-up call, but even worse than the wounds inflicted on Tyrel Lomax by ‘plastic blades’ that also should be banned, are the psychological scars, as Ireland can testify from Twickenham four years ago.
Fiji’s historic win over England at Twickenham last Saturday underlined that this World Cup will be about power and physicality as much, if not more, than skill and creativity. But as well winning the collisions, there was one team which played with offloads, footwork, pace, freedom and joy, and, unsurprisingly, that was not England.
Whereas Ireland maintained a low-key entry into the World Cup, the weekend that shook the world provided a timely shot-in-the-arm for the holders, the hosts, Fiji and by extension the Pacific Islanders.
