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Six Nations tournament: the Blues plunge into chaos after the postponement of the match against Scotland

2021-02-25T21:04:17.857Z


The uncontrolled proliferation of Covid-19 within the XV of France led to the postponement of the match against Scotland, scheduled for Sunday, and gangrene


The sky did not stay blue for very long above the XV of France.

Everything was so beautiful, so flashy, yet.

We were ecstatic about this wave of tricolor youth, its enthusiasm, its talent, its successes.

We saluted his seriousness, his work, the competence of his guides.

We were talking about Grand Slam, unheard of for eleven years, that's to say.

We saw eyes light up, we even forgot the closed doors.

And then the clouds arrived in the form of a virus: the English strain of Covid-19.

Time froze suddenly above Marcoussis in Essonne where the Habs are preparing their meetings.

A cluster, revealed on February 16, has grown to reach twelve players, most of them, including captain Charles Ollivon and Antoine Dupont, as well as four members of the management, including coach Fabien Galthié.

The last case to date, this Thursday, was one too many.

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The factual or clinical answers do not matter.

France-Scotland, scheduled for Sunday at the Stade de France, has been postponed and all the positive cases have been isolated, sent back to their homes.

This dented picture, however, only reflects the surface of things.

The Blues, already victorious twice in Italy (50-10) and Ireland (15-13), will complete their Tournament later, perhaps at the end of spring or at the beginning of summer.

The consequence is distressing but anecdotal, because the evil revealed by this affair is much deeper than that.

It risks leaving traces, or even destroying the project behind which all of French rugby had aligned itself: finally winning the World Cup, in 2023, in France.

The farce turns grotesque

The state of play today is deplorable indeed.

What do we see?

A coach who would have freed himself from the strict rules validated by his government, a sine qua non for the green light given to the competition… Players feeling duped by their leader… A president of the Federation Bernard Laporte playing the ingenuous in front of the Minister for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, in search of explanations… A vice-president Serge Simon, lighting backfires as smoky as they are crude while trying to put the blame on a mysterious physical trainer whose identity has not been disclosed…

The farce turns grotesque and reaches the ears of the Prime Minister in full focus on the pandemic this Thursday evening.

"You have to know what happened before talking about sanctions," replied Jean Castex to a question from a journalist.

We must analyze and know.

The sanction is already given to the XV of France with the impossibility of playing.

"

We will see what gives the investigation required by the ministry and conducted by the FFR itself.

But what image do the leaders of the Blues reflect today in the eyes of the Scots, Irish, English, Welsh or Italians who, for their part, have remained serious?

In the eyes of their supporters?

In the eyes of a public at large, too, who no doubt expected something other than these rascal behaviors caught in the jar of jam.

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2021-02-25

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