16 Jan 2025
Speaking with Genting Casino, Thierry Dusatoir said:
- France were not the same team without Antoine Dupont in 2024
- Ireland may not be as good as they used to be - but who can realistically beat them?
- Welsh rugby is in a bad place - it’s a perfect start for France in the Six Nations
- France will win Six Nations and Italy will finish above Wales again if they show consistency
- France are not at the level they were in 2022 and won’t win a grand slam
- A British and Irish Lions tour in France is a wonderful fantasy
- Top 14 is the best club Championship in the world - RFU should change rules
- Jack Willis has made a huge impact at Toulon and would lead England’s young players
- It’s a mistake to label Owen Farrell a flop - people don't understand how hard it is
- Stuart Lancaster at Racing 92 needs to understand French culture
- Ronan O’Gara brought the Munster culture to La Rochelle
- Level of Top 14 is incredible and better than when I was playing
- I miss English sides challenging in Europe - this year Toulouse have to be favourites
- Ardie Savea is the best back-row player in the world - he is showing great leadership
- Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish and Georgian teams should play in Europe - not South African sides
- France need to manage player workloads to have a chance to win 2027 World Cup
- We had nothing to lose in 2011 Rugby World Cup final - it was really emotional
- The Six Nations is the greatest tournament in the world
- Richie McCaw was the greatest
- Johnny Wilkinson was the only English player to be loved in France
France were not the same team without Antoine Dupont in 2024
I think that we are just passing a year of transition in 2024 because we’ve needed to recover from the disappointment of the World Cup.
They have also suffered injuries to key players and with Dupont unavailable that has helped us push forward other young players such as Romain Bouros and Marko Gazzotti.
So now for the Six Nations I think the French team is getting back on track and you will have players like Dupont who is going to come again, he is a phenomenon. I think that for any team it's not the same to play against France without Antoine Dupont.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of injuries. Charles Ollivon will not be there, and Gael Fikou, Jonathan Danty and the props Jean-Baptiste Gros and Cyrille Baille. Hopefully we will start to continue the progression during the Six Nations.
Ireland may not be as good as they used to be - but who can realistically beat them?
Andy Farrell’s absence creates a different dynamic. They didn't show the normal confidence and control that they used to show the past years during the Autumn Internationals, so maybe there will be an opportunity there.
But besides France, who realistically will be able to beat them? I don't think Wales because they're not playing good rugby right now. I don't know about England because it's not the English team that we talked about some years ago. But they did well in New Zealand last summer and only lost by a few points.
It’s true that maybe Ireland is not as good as they used to be. But they still have a good chance.
Welsh rugby is in a bad place - it’s a perfect start for France in the Six Nations
Welsh rugby is in a bad place. For France, playing at home is very important. It is a good place to start for us.
Wales have a lot of young players without much international experience. We have to take this opportunity to win the game and to give us confidence.
France will win Six Nations and Italy will finish above again Wales if they show consistency
Number one, France, number two Ireland, number three England, number four Scotland, number five Italy, number six Wales.
Italy were quite interesting during the last Six Nations. They have some young and very promising backs.
Italy are still improving and Gonzalo Quesada is doing a good job there. I remember last year they should have won against us. They deserved it too. I hope that they're starting to build some consistency and to be able to show that they are playing better rugby right now. Their problem has been no consistency, up and down every year.
France are not at the level they were in 2022 and won’t win a grand slam
I don't think so. It is possible but I don't think so because I don't think we are at the level of 2022, which was our last Grand Slam.
And at the same point, I think that England is coming back slowly, Ireland is not as weak as we would like to think, I think that we are able to win it. We will win the title but not as a grand slam.
A British and Irish Lions tour in France is a wonderful fantasy
I was talking about that with a friend of mine, a former player too. One thing that you can regret, that you never play in a team like this. You never have the opportunity as a French player to play in a team like this, because for me it's something great, something very special.
Talking from the French point of view, we maybe don't understand or appreciate how important it is, because we have no clue about what it represents for you, for South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
It would have been great to play in a game like this. The players would be really happy to be able to play a game like this. Imagine if the Lions started maybe having one game in France before a tour.
A tour would be wonderful! Unfortunately, it's not the reality. It's a lovely fantasy. Maybe one day!
Top 14 is the best club Championship in the world - RFU should change rules
I understand the wish to try to keep the player in the Premiership, but the best club championship in the world is not in England anymore. It's the Top 14.
So I understand that the player wants to be in that place playing against the best.
They're earning good money, but I can't understand why the RFU doesn't pick them. They are a maximum of two hours away. It is not like they are in Australia, for example. I could understand that.
It’s a pity for the English team, maybe they're going to think about changing the rules. They should.
Jack Willis has made a huge impact at Toulon and would lead England’s young players
Jack Willis is incredible. What he's doing in Toulouse is something great. He had the captaincy a few games ago. So, he has had a huge impact. And I think that he would really help this young English team, in terms of confidence.
You have Jack Nowell, who's doing well. He flourished over there, he's really happy over there, as is Kyle Sinckler in Toulon.
It’s a mistake to label Owen Farrell a flop - people don't understand how hard it is
That’s a mistake for me. I disagree with that because people don't understand how hard it is to change the club. Firstly, because you have a different culture and it’s not easy immediately to fit in with the culture of the country and the club.
He has also gone to a club which is missing a lot of leadership. Racing is having problems with or without Owen Farrell. Maybe he hasn’t had the impact that he could have, but maybe the context of the team, or the club, doesn't help him to feel comfortable and to do what he knows.
Unfortunately for him, he’s also been injured. So maybe he's going to reset and to lose all this pressure, the negative pressure to start just enjoying and living the experience. But I think that they are quite hard on him.
Stuart Lancaster at Racing 92 needs to understand French culture
The main problem for an English coach is to understand our culture, the way we live rugby, the way we experience rugby, the way the players, the French players, what they do, what they are waiting for from a coach, the way they want to be coached.
You always have a period of adaptation. You have the problem of the language, different language also. Language is important.
They don't pick the little differences, the nuances, when you're speaking. They can't do that. And I think that maybe for Lancaster to express himself, it's easier to be quick and to be more precise speaking - it's hard. He is helped by Joe Rokocoko and Frederic Michalak.
Racing have good players too, but when you see them, you don't see any leadership. They were hoping to get it from Siya Kolisi last year. It never happened because one player cannot do everything. We're talking about rugby. It's a collective game. It's the ultimate team game.
Ronan O’Gara brought the Munster culture to La Rochelle
He speaks good French and he expresses himself well in French. What he did well in La Rochelle, first he changed the culture of the city, of the team.
He has done it the right way. Remember he started in Racing 92, like 10 years ago, so he knew French culture. He had the experience of New Zealand with the Crusaders. He never tried to go too fast.
When he came there, he brought the Munster culture where you represent your city, your family, people coming to the crowd. You're not just playing for you, you're playing for the jersey. This is something really important and you can understand that when he speaks.
He’s a good coach because he's never satisfied. He just tries to find a way to improve. And as you say, he did it the right way. He went to Paris to learn. He went to the Crusaders for a season. So, he's learning as a coach before he takes the number one role, which is important.
It's important and if you compare Lancaster with O’Gara, these few years as an assistant coach in Racing helped him to understand. When you're an assistant coach, you're closer to the player, so you can speak in different ways, and can learn in different ways.
It helps a lot to understand the way we are thinking because I have to admit that we are different! We are really emotional. We don't live rugby the same way as the English guys, for example. England is more pragmatic.
Level of Top 14 is incredible and better than when I was playing
The level of Top 14 too, which is incredible. When I stopped eight years ago, it wasn't like this. You can see that every game is a final.
I think the league in France did a good job too because you have more and more people who are interested in rugby. More and more people know the work they have to do. And I have to say that players like Antoine Dupont helped a lot too.
I miss English sides challenging in Europe - this year Toulouse have to be favourites
I loved the old days when we challenged English sides like Saracens or Wasps. However, Toulouse have to be the favourites. They are almost an international team.
Ardie Savea is the best back-row player in the world - he is showing great leadership
Ardie Savea probably. I would pick Savea. He had a great World Cup. The last tour in the autumn was in two. The All Blacks have gathered around him so he's got great leadership.
He also has made a courageous choice now going to play for the Moana Pasifika franchise under Tana Umaga. This shows that this guy wants to show something else than just playing rugby. It is showing great leadership in my opinion.
Romanian, Portuguese, Spanish and Georgian teams should play in Europe - not South African sides
I don’t think South African teams should be included in the Champions Cup - I think it should stay a European competition.,
I understand the benefit for the South African teams. But I think in the power, the organization, and even the spirit of the competition we have lost something by opening the competition to the southern hemisphere.
Not because I don't like the South African teams, there's nothing to do about that. It's just because I think it should have stayed a European competition. If you wanted to have more teams, you could have opened it to other countries in Europe. Of course, the level would have been different.
I miss the old Heineken Cup. I think the format makes it hard to understand who is going to qualify now. I miss having a good, big and strong English team because it was really important for European rugby. It still is.
It's really important to have strong rugby in the northern hemisphere, strong national teams and strong clubs.
If you want to develop the game in Europe, there are Romania, Portugal, Spain and Georgia. I understand the exposure would not be so interesting to start with. I understand they want to get the best commercial deal possible.
But the point is you have an intense Top 14 with a club game on a Saturday and then having to go to South Africa to play the week after then coming back to France.
Players are human beings not machines. The South Africans don't have this problem because they are just wanting this competition. They have the Currie Cup but that is played at a different time of the year.
France need to manage player workloads to have a chance to win 2027 World Cup
I wouldn't say that we're going to win the World Cup in 2027! I think we lost a great opportunity in France. We lost in the quarter-finals, but we never had a team like this.
But now we are building something new with new players. It's a new cycle, I would say. Hopefully we have really good players coming through. Like Temo Mathiu for example, who is playing in Bordeaux.
He’s a great player so we have a lot of talent in France. This year is a transition year. Our great challenge is the way we're going to bring players like Dupont from 2025 to 2027. That is just two years, but you have to think that they are getting older and older and they are still playing a lot of games, 30-40 games a year, too many.
How are they going to manage that?
We had nothing to lose in 2011 Rugby World Cup final - it was really emotional
I would say that was the easier game for us to play because we had no pressure. Nobody was expecting us. As I told you, we were really emotional and we never accepted the way we've been treated by people from the press who said we didn't deserve to be here, we were a bad team.
We had nothing to lose in fact, because everybody was expecting that we would lose by 40 points. As you said, New Zealand were nervous so they didn't play the way that they are used to.
It's still a great memory because if you remember three weeks before this game, we lost against Tonga. We were almost out of the World Cup. The quarter final was against England.
If I remember the World Cup, I just remember those three weeks, from the end of Tonga to the final, the way we prepared, the way we gathered together, and we came back. It's our emotion which is our biggest strength as a French player. It's our biggest weakness too!
The Six Nations is the greatest tournament in the world
Yes. It is about history. Having the chance to play the Six Nations is having the chance to see history, the folklore you have. I know a lot of people in France who plan this moment to gather with friends to travel to Ireland, to Scotland, to England. It's a huge moment in rugby.
Richie McCaw was the greatest
Richie McCaw was one. We were in the back row against each other. People remember me because I had an opponent like him and I was lucky to play good games against the All Blacks.
Johnny Wilkinson was the only English player to be loved in France
Johnny Wilkinson. What a player. Maybe it's the only English player who is really loved in France. He did something great, he came to Toulon after a bad moment in Newcastle. He recovered, he played great, he helped us to win two Heineken Cups and one championship.
When he arrived he spoke really good French. People fell in love with him. People understood that he made the effort and wanted to be part of the team, part of the city.
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