France was so low on confidence it seemed unlikely to get past England in the quarterfinals. But Lievremont’s players showed pride and passion to sweep England aside in the first half, then held on when Martin Johnson’s team rallied.
Having been so listless in the pool matches, France bounced back by tapping into the anger it felt from its humiliating defeat to Tonga.
Lievremont urges his players to find a new way to raise their level again.
“A good match against England isn’t enough to rid us of all our frustrations,” he said. “We’ve tried to get the players to take responsibility for the way they play and the psychological aspect of this match.”
Lievremont says it hasn’t been worth asking the players to channel their disgust from the Tonga match again, as that emotion has been exhausted.
He wants the players to gee themselves up by visualizing the desolation they would feel at the final whistle if they lose at Eden Park.
“Perhaps an anger against ourselves, by telling ourselves we have no right to slip up in terms of commitment and concentration which is so indispensable in a semifinal,” he said. “We need to feel confident to get good results. The first half we played against England and the good week we’ve had in training correspond to that.”
Grinding out results is not the France way; going from the sublime to the ridiculous, and then back again, is.
“The Anglo-Saxons, the Welsh, have shown this consistency in their matches,” he said. “We Latins, French, need something else. A form of anger, affection. We’ve spoken it among ourselves, we’ll need a mixture of that.”
Lievremont has been the most outspoken coach at the World Cup, and his straight-talking nature makes it impossible for him to switch off — even when his head hits the pillow at night.
The despair of the Tonga defeat, and the jubilation at beating England means he hasn’t been sleeping much recently.
“Yes, but that’s been going on for a while. I’m full of adrenaline, telling myself that I’ll have plenty of time to sleep in 10 days’ time. I don’t need many hours of sleep. I’m probably more stressed than I was last week.
“Above all, I’m scared of the Welsh,” he added, when asked if he feared his team would ease up after ousting England.
Lievremont dismissed a question over whether his team’s slack defending could be punished by Wales — France has conceded tries in every match and 11 overall — by saying that logic has not been respected so far during the tournament.
“World Cup winners had never lost a match before, here we have three of the four semifinalists who’ve lost at least once, France has lost twice,” he said. “We’ll keep working on our defense and on everything else.”
Although Wales has been playing the better rugby, losing by just one point to two-time champion South Africa and dominating Ireland in the quarterfinals, this will be its first semifinal. France, though, has survivors from the semifinals in 2003 and 2007, both of which were lost to England.
“We have a certain amount of experience of these matches, even if we never know if we’ll rise to the occasion, that’s always the difficulty when you’re preparing for this kind of match,” said captain Thierry Dusautoir, who played in the ‘07 loss.
He knows how much his teammates got carried away by upsetting New Zealand in the quarterfinals four years ago, only to fall flat against England. He says the players have been much calmer this time around.
“In 2007 we had beaten the best team in the world, no one had beaten them for I don’t know how long, they were the big tournament favorites,” he said. “This time, England were not among the tournament favorites. From that point of view things are bit different.”
Dusautoir said Wales was a class above, but his team has kept earning second chances and shouldn’t waste them.
“It’s a bit like our tournament started again from the quarterfinals,” he said.
