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Bernard Laporte - final fling with Les Bleus
Home stadium: Stade de France, St. Denis, Paris (80,000)
Nickname: Les Bleus
Number of rugby players in the country: 212,059
National rugby website address: www.ffr.fr
Current national champions: 2007 - Stade Français
Strengths: The French like to run the ball in the backs, playing what they call le jeu beau (the beautiful game). They have been running the ball for years, and thus are extremely good at it. When the ball is falling for them anyway...
Weaknesses: The team is world-class all the way through, but the temperament is highly suspect. They can oscillate from the terrific to the terrible - or the other way round - often in the same game. Bernard Laporte has calmed them down a bit, but recently he has been telling them to get more passionate!
History in the tournament: 1987 - Runners-up, 1991 - quarter-final, 1995 - semi-final, 1999 - Runners-up, 2003 - semi-final
Prediction for this tournament: They are the hosts, they have a settled, experienced team, and they are the best Europe has to offer. Unfortunately, they have been drawn in a grotesquely difficult group with Ireland and Argentina, which offers a very real chance of elimination in the pool stages, and if they finish runners-up, a quarter-final against nemesis New Zealand. But if they win their pool, it's a quarter-final against Scotland or Italy, and then a likely semi-final against South Africa... and that is where their run might end.
Coach: Bernard Laporte has been at France's helm for eight years now, and this World Cup will be the culmination of one long project. Despite his preference for a more structured and thought-out game than previous French teams have played, he is just as prone to outbursts of self-destructive Gallic passion as the next Frenchman, famously terming home fans 'bourgeois shits' after they had booed one poor home performance, and haranguing and threatening referee Stuart Dickinson after a recent Test in New Zealand, saying if Dickinson was refereeing his team would not take to the field. He was censured for both incidents by his union, but he must have impressed someone, for he is set for a role in the Ministry of Sport after the World Cup is over... imagine his first job in parliament being an explanation of why his team crashed out in the pool stages!
Key player: Look no further than scrum-half Pierre Mignoni. Jean-Baptiste Elissalde and Dimitri Yachvili have had a duopoly on the France number nine shirt for years, but Mignoni's role in Clermont's sudden charge into prominence in the top resulted in his call-up for this year's Six Nations, and his service and attacking flair re-installed the zip into France's backs.
Captain: Raphaël Ibañez has done it all before. In Andre Watson's memoirs, the referee recalled the look of terror on the face of every French player in the 1999 World Cup final - all except captain Ibanez, who seemed not to have a care in the world! He has been as energetic as a young hopeful ever since he re-emerged from international retirement in 2005 and - whisper it quietly - probably has more leadership influence and temperament than Fabien Pelous anyway.
Rising star: France's biggest stumbling block has been finding an all-round fly-half in recent years. Freddie Michalak has the inspiration, but rarely the physical strength to back it up, and David Skréla has the strength but is missing the inspiration. Enter Stade Français starlet Lionel Beauxis, whose goal-kicking and tactical kicking has already won the French an Under-21 World Cup, and whose playmaking skills get better and better. And at 86kg, he is no shrinking violet...
Team Nemesis: New Zealand. Since the last World Cup (where New Zealand beat France 40-13 to take third place) the two have played five times. New Zealand have won 45-6, 47-3, 23-11, 42-11, and 61-10. The combined tries score is 28-3 in favour of the All Blacks. Even more frighteningly, the first three of those reverses were played in France. Oh, and by the way, France lost to New Zealand in the 1987 World Cup final as well. The French have had their moments of glory against New Zealand: the astonishing 1999 World Cup semi-final, and the 'try from the end of the earth' that beat the All Blacks in New Zealand in 1994. None of them are recent though.
Likely headlines: 'Bruno knocks English cold', 'Heymans' haymaker cited', 'Clerc records a moment of history', 'easy-peasy Dominici', 'Remy Martin warms up back row' - but what a shame Elvis Vermeulen will not be playing!
Price of a pint: From a recorded E4.50 in La Rochelle and Nantes, to a 'needs to be tasty' E7.90 in Paris
Rugby player/sheep ratio: 1:44.
