France-England: "We're going to be stung by what we showed tonight"... Les Bleues disappointed but already looking ahead to the World Cup

The French team were outclassed by the English in their only World Cup warm-up match on Saturday evening.

Closed mines, and already the desire to see further. The players of the French team were soundly beaten by England in their only preparation match (40-6), Saturday August 9 in Mont-de-Marsan, two weeks before the World Cup. Outplayed for almost the entire match, dominated in the game, the Blues took the blow by conceding six tries against the best nation on the planet. "It's a bit tough mentally, we were keen to play a good preparation match [...] there is a lot of disappointment and frustration," reacted the French third row Charlotte Escudero to the microphone of France Télévisions shortly after the final whistle.

Disappointment and frustration were the most common words spoken by French players after the match. After long weeks of preparation in Marcoussis, the French women were particularly disappointed that they had not been able to show the fruits of their hard work. "Obviously there was disappointment tonight, we clearly didn't show the face we were hoping for. The girls worked hard during this prep and today we weren't able to show that we had worked hard," co-coach Gaëlle Mignot admitted at a press conference.

Disappointment and frustration also came from the players who didn't have many balls to get their teeth into to try and play. "We were looking forward to getting back into competition, so obviously the fact that we didn't have as many attacking balls as we would have liked is frustrating," admitted Alexandra Chambon, who started in the scrum in the absence of Pauline Bourdon Sansus.

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Les Bleues particularly suffered from their indiscipline, which paved the way for the formidable English ball carriers, who scored four tries on Saturday evening. "We're going to have to raise the bar on our discipline. We're getting penalized too much, we can't win a match by conceding 12 penalties in 40 minutes ," analyzed fly-half Carla Arbez, highlighting the difficulties in this area in the first half. We told ourselves before the match, we're not respecting what we said, so we're losing the match on our own, we're giving them too many opportunities to score."

"In the first half, that's what struck me, we gave them too many touches at home, too many mauls carried, and they had a blast, that's their trademark."

Carla Arbez, fly-half for the French XV

at a press conference

Defending the mauls is one of the lessons to be learned from the match, according to co-coach David Ortiz: "We are aware of that, we are still in the running-in phase. One of the specific objectives we are working on is to give our opponents a minimum of ammunition in our camp, today that was not the case and of course we paid for it." For Charlotte Escudero, there is still "a lot of work to do, whether on the outside or in the heart of the field, we were caught out everywhere."

With concentrated but not closed faces, the Blues did not want to talk about alarm signals or feelings of helplessness, and stressed the importance of having "evaluated themselves on a match of this level" , according to Alexandra Chambon. And in the stands of the André-et-Guy-Boniface stadium, heads were already turned towards the World Cup and the first match against Italy (on the 23rd in Exeter), with the inevitable desire to do better. "It's going to be a great start against Italy, it's good, it gives us something to work on" , assured Carla Arbez.

"I know my squad, we're going to be stung by what we showed tonight," said Gaëlle Mignot. "When we get slapped, there's usually always a reaction afterwards. We're all going to get back to work," added captain Manae Feleu. They have two weeks left to put their money where their mouth is before starting the group stage across the Channel (Italy, Brazil, South Africa).