Ibanez warning to victorious France
Raphael Ibanez insists France will not allow their record-equalling victory over England to distract them from the real task at hand – beating Wales next Saturday to win the RBS Six Nations Championship.
Ibanez will look forward to returning to Wasps when the tournament is over armed with bragging rights after France’s 31-6 demolition of a woeful England side.
But the 33-year-old, whose international career has been revitalised since his summer switch from Saracens, is also determined to parade a winners’ medal around west London.
“The biggest mistake would be to think the tournament is over now,” Ibanez warned.
“This is exactly what we insisted in the changing room straight after the game.
“The message was ‘well done guys, we beat England at home but we have one more game and we need to be focused on it’.”
France are tied with Ireland after three wins from four matches but lead the championship table with a positive points difference of 58.
Ireland meet England at Twickenham next weekend, while France head to Cardiff to face a Wales side held to an 18-18 draw by Italy on Saturday.
Should both France and Ireland win, Eddie O’Sullivan’s men would have to beat England by 29 points more than Les Bleus post against Wales to snatch the title.
“There is a lot of pressure on us to win this competition,” admitted Olivier Magne, the France and London Irish number eight.
“We know the tournament is not over. We want to win the competition and we can do it next week, but we have to play well.
“Wales have nothing to lose and we have a chance to win the competition.”
France have been so inconsistent this season that their rugby public was beginning to lose patience.
Defeat to Scotland on the opening weekend was followed by unconvincing performances in a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ victory over Ireland and a battling win over Italy.
France were still not at their scintillating best this weekend, but they made a blistering start to take the lead inside 43 seconds and England lost all composure.
Tries from Florian Fritz, Damien Traille and Christophe Dominici, plus 16 points from the boot of Dimitri Yachvili, condemned England to their worst defeat to France since 1972.
“We have had highs and lows this season,” Ibanez explained.
“Since the beginning of the tournament we have stayed really honest with ourselves because we knew we haven’t been playing well enough to pose any real danger.
“But this victory will really help our young players. It may have looked easy from the stands but there was big intensity.”
France will not make the mistake of underestimating Wales despite their own struggles this season. The opportunity to win the title is too great to let slip by being careless.
“We must win in Wales – we want to win the Six Nations,” said full-back Thomas Castaignede.
“Wales are a strange team, they are able to beat Australia and almost lose to Fiji. They are not consistent but they are able to play quality rugby and they have some good players.
“It will be a difficult game and if we want to beat them then we will have to be at our best.”
