Noves Not Best Pleased With Laporte

Top coach Guy Noves has slammed national
coach Bernard Laporte for blaming France’s failure to win the World Cup on laxism at the club level.

Laporte accused French clubs of being inferior to their English
counterparts after France’s 24-7 loss to England in the World Cup
semi-final
in Sydney in November.

But Noves, coach of European champions Toulouse, said big European
Cup
defeats at the weekend for Leicester and Wasps showed that English
clubs also
had their problems.

“It just proves that all that is being said about the
superiority of
English club rugby isn’t justified,” he told L’Equipe on Monday (Jan 12).
“We are being told that English club rugby is in better shape
than French
club rugby, and that their players are fitter and better trained.

“Certain people hold them up as examples, but they also have
their
off-days. So what are we to make of that?. The English are still
world
champions aren’t they?

“As for those that keep saying that it’s the clubs that are
to blame, I do
not agree and I am fed-up of hearing these lies.”

Noves said Laporte had accused French club sides of lacking
professional
rigour, but had erred himself in his team selection policy for the
World Cup.

Laporte had been wrong, he said, to take along to Australia
players such as
Toulouse utility back Xavier Garbajosa and Montferrand centre Tony
Marsh,
neither of whom were fully fit.

“You call that being rigorous? That showed a complete
disregard for the
players’ health and in the end benefits no-one,” he said.

“It’s no use saying now that we need properly-trained players
to play for
France when we have taken the risk of selecting convalescents.”

And Noves had sharp words for Laporte’s defence of South
African-born prop
Pieter de Villiers who tested positive for cocaine and ecstasy in
December
2002.

“If you are calling, like him, for a more rigorous approach
then you don’t
jump in to defend a player who gets to bed at six in the morning and
who
tested positive for ecstasy and cocaine,” he said

“The player in question is no doubt a charming person, but
from there to
select him for the French national side is just not on.”

Laporte, a former club coach himself with Stade Francais, signed a
new
four-year contract as national coach in December and was given
increased
powers in his dealing with club sides to prepare the next World Cup
held in
France in 2007