End of radio silence in November. The French Rugby Federation announced this Wednesday that a press conference will be organized with Fabien Galthié to debrief the World Cup. Since the elimination of the XV of France in the quarter-final of “his” World Cup against South Africa, the coach of the Blues has not spoken.
He had simply tried to analyze on the spot, at the edge of the pitch and then at a press conference, the cruel defeat that his team had just suffered: “My first thought goes here. To all our supporters, to all our families, and to our France group, which must be courageous.
Since then, nothing. Galthié still hit the headlines by appearing naked on the front page of Voici, in the company of his wife Hélène Noguerra. Photos for which the former scrum half decided to sue the magazine. Beyond this affair, his silence is strongly criticized.
“The silence that annoys”, even headlines the sports daily L’Equipe this Wednesday, November 1, supporting photo by Fabien Galthié. Enough to make the president of the French Rugby Federation, Florian Grill, react. “Media time is not human time. We must give men time to digest which can be long after 4 years of pressure, he writes on X (formerly Twitter). Then will come that of analysis and finally that of communication. No emergency. Let’s respect men.”
Several of the “men” in question returned to the training grounds with their Top 14 clubs. “If I stayed at home, I was going to cry every day,” even confided Peato Mauvaka, decisive in the victory of the Stade Toulousain against UBB this weekend (29-22).