France Women’s captain Manae Feleu expressed how she’s pleased that her team doesn’t rely on individual players, despite coming away on the losing side of last Saturday’s exhibition Test match against England. The Red Roses recorded their 14th consecutive win over France, with the final score reading 39-18 at Gloucester’s Kingsholm Stadium.
Feleu led her side out at the home of the Cherry and Whites, with France head coaches Gaelle Mignot and David Ortiz opting to leave two star names amongst the replacements. Regular starting scrum half Pauline Bourdon-Sansus and centre Gabrielle Vernier had second half involvements, which included a try from Toulouse halfback Bourdon-Sansus. France skipper Feleu was frustrated with the result, but expressed the importance of her side not relying on individuals in the run up to next year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup.
“It’s really important for us to have a team that doesn’t rely on individuals. We want to build a team and not be dependent on an individual. So having Pauline (Bourdon Sansus) and Gabri (Vernier) on our bench today was really good for us, I think because it taught us to work without them, and I think we did pretty well with that.
“We still need to get confidence, and I think some leaders are going to come up from that. So it’s really good for for the team and for the building of of the team as well.”
The last time France beat England in the Women’s game was the finale of the 2018 Women’s Six Nations, when ‘Les Bleus’ scraped a 18-17 win on home soil. The past six years have been overrun by Red Roses dominance, and 24-year-old Feleu has never experienced a Test win over the number one ranked women’s side, with the lock only making her debut for France in 2020.
“We knew that today was going to be tough. It was for us an opportunity to play in England, it’s the best team in the world at the moment. So it was a big opportunity for us to prepare for the WXV. We went into the game knowing that it was, it wasn’t going to be perfect on our side, and it was a preparation game.
“So we knew we were going to make mistakes. That’s what we did. And what we’re going to take away is that we know what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are, and now we can work on both.”
As Feleu expressed, France are not going to dwell upon the grievances of defeat in Gloucestershire, with the WXV1 tournament kicking off at the end of the month. France, along with their Six Nations rivals England and Ireland, all jet out to Canada for the tournament, in which they will face the hosting Maple Leaves, as well as the USA and the Black Ferns of New Zealand.
An area of improvement that Feleu wants to iron out ahead of their flight across the Atlantic, is their conversion rate in the opposition 22m. France squandered a significant amount of possession in the Red Roses ‘red zone’, with unforced errors gifting possession away in dangerous try scoring areas.
“I think the biggest one is that when we get into the 22s, we don’t score. I think we went into England’s 22s, like six times or eight times without scoring. The difference is, when they go into our 22s, they score every time. I think that’s the biggest point.
We’ve been working on our mauls, because it’s a big strength in England. I think today it was a strength for us with the new rule as well. I think it helped us. So the biggest one is when we are in the 22s, we need to score.”