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France coach Laurent Frayssinous knows that this World Cup is going to be a tough one for his side – but also that it is just the starting point for a longer journey that could awaken the biggest sleeping giant in the sport.
France was once the most powerful rugby league nation in the world, defeating Australia in two consecutive tours in the early 1950s, but failed to keep up as Australia and England kicked on in the 1970s and 1980s and now rank behind several Pacific nations as well as the traditional powers.
Yet, with the French set to host the next tournament in 2025, the opportunity is there for a renaissance, with Frayssinous and his mentor, Roosters coach Trent Robinson, masterminding the return.
Frayssinous will coach the side at this year’s tournament, but Robinson is on hand to offer advice and to help guide the process behind the scenes on a whole-of-game level.
“Trent is a big fan of French rugby league, and at the start, what he said was that he wasn’t coming for just six months or one year because there’s a World Cup, he said I’m coming to help for 2025 and later,” said Frayssinous.
“His knowledge is huge – about the game, but also how to improve a few areas at the French Federation (FFR). In the last 18 months, we have shared a lot of information both about the French team and how to grow the structure beneath. There is a plan in place and a lot of work to do.”
“What would be good is to have a full-time competition in France. That’s one of the main goals from the FFR president Luc Lacoste.
“That’s what you want to have in the future, to have 8-10 big towns and cities who are full-time to see rugby league everywhere in France. That comes on the back of having good results and performances with the French team.”
One of the key aspects of that national team success is regular fixtures, and the new review of rugby league announced by private equity group IMG two weeks ago has named annual, midseason test matches between France and England as a key part of growing the game in Europe and improving both teams.
“You want your national team to play as much as possible,” said Frayssinous.
“We are pretty lucky to have our neighbours in England as the best team in Europe. We would be mad not to play against the best and wanting to improve.
“We’ve definitely been in touch in the last 12 months to put this in place for the future and next year already.
“We’re in talks with the RFL and it’s going pretty well. We are very keen to keep on improving by playing the best. Hopefully at one point, we will be able to win against them.”
The French have benefitted massively from having two full-time squads of players to pick from in Super League sides Catalans Dragons and Toulouse Olympique XIII, which helps their traditionally-strong junior ranks to transition into the national side.
“We have talents, and we used to win against England at u-17s, but off the back of that we miss something. We have to put in place something to link the best at u-17s to be the best to play with France. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we have a plan in place and the help from Trent is huge.”
“We’ve got some young talented players who have started in the last two years with Catalans and Toulouse, so obviously I’m full of confidence for the World Cup. We put some objectives for the team about what we want to achieve, but we keep that within ourselves.
“We have a tough pool, because obviously, England is a tough team, Samoa are unbelievable for this World Cup and Greece have talented players who are playing in the NRL. It will be a tough group for us.
“But the French team is the best for 15-20 years, they are all full-time professionals who play at the highest level in Super League, plus Louis Jouffret and Gadwin Springer who are some of the best players in the Championship. We won’t make any excuses, we have some objectives to reach and we can’t wait to start.”
That starts this weekend with a warm-up against Tonga in Halifax., which Frayssinous insisted would be the perfect preparation for their meeting with the Samoans in Warrington on October 30.
“We had always wanted to play Tonga in the warm-up because they play very similarly to Samoa, so we will know what to expect in the group game,” he said.
“We’ll know what we did well, what we did badly and how to improve, because Tonga and Samoa have some of the best players in the world.
“It would have been easier to play a lesser team and win by 20 points to gain some confidence, but you will not learn what you need to do against Samoa.
“It’s the perfect build-up for us, even though it will be tough.”