by Mark L. Caumixe, with the help of @McMademoiselle

Hello England!

Boucherie Ovalie speaking. We run a website about rugby, and we recently wrote the best book in the world.

As you may know, the Rugby World Cup has just started in your country, my English friends. Our country will take part in it, and we would like to share some information with you so that you can brag about knowing a thing or two while you sip on your ale and the French game is shown on the pub’s telly, much to everyone’s indifference.

Armed with a level of English that would make a sixth grader proud, let’s start with some general facts.

France

(or as we call it “La France”)

France is the country at the other side of that big hole in Folkestone. It is mainly inhabited by migrants whose sole ambition is to steal jobs from british people, abuse the welfare system, take over London, speak ill of the Britons, and conspire against the British way of life, united in their hatred for gammon steaks and pork pies. These people, the French stock exchange traders, already made London the sixth largest French city.

France has gorgeous landscapes, excellent food, fabulous public service. Yet the French are the world champions of being miserable and complaining. We’re sadder than Afghans and Palestinians. I shit you not. To sum it up: it is a fantastic country full of depressed people. In that respect, it is the exact opposite of England. Over the past 20 years, France had a string of shaky presidents. From Alzheimer-shaky to Coke-addict shaky to jelly-shaky.

Something oddly similar happened to its rugby team and their current coach, Philippe Saint-André (French for Philip Saint-Andrew), has the rather irritating habit of sounding as if he was sobbing when he speaks. Hence the nickname “Ouin-ouin” (which could be translated into “Whine-whine”)

Remember, this guy won a couple of things with the Sale rugby team.

The Rugby

In 2011, in spite of underwhelming performances in the competition and a clear underdog status, France was an inch close to win the World Cup if it was not for the usual crooked refereeing that us frogs always have to cope with. Philippe Saint-André came in and cunningly established a new strategy that had to be kept secret for four years. We can now reveal this machavelic plan. It relies on the following four axioms:

• Underdogs: France is only good when they take the role of the underdogs. 2007? We were favorites, we lost. 2003? Best team ever, we lost. 1999 and 2011? Total underdogs, we have never done better.

• Drama: we are a romantic nation. There needs to be a lot of drama, of chaos, of people arguing loudly about everything. So at some point no one listens and nothing really makes sense, but all of a sudden, for a very brief moment – a gameor two – everything falls nicely and surprisingly into place. This very chic moment, these few seconds of pure genius that turns the ugliest game into the greatest match, that make you, the Bleus, and the guys on the other side say “what the fuck did just happen?” is what you guys call “The French Flair”

• Bloody disgusting strokes of luck: yes, we French are very aware that luck is a part of our game. We call it “French Chatte”. And we count on it. More than ever actually.

So Coach Philip methodically took out any sign of creativity and skills from our game, maximizing the chances of making use of the above points, to an extent never seen before, hoping it would counteract that terrible curse of being faced with biased if not corrupt referees. That, fitness training and a strong defense.

As a consequence, they’re boring to watch, weak, irregular, less and less people go to see the games. But no one will see Les Bleus coming.

The Players

Like England, France has a policy against recruiting players that play outside the country. Well, to be honest, it may have more to do with the fact that that there is no proper player outside the country. There are not many inside the country either, but at least, much like England, France can count on its former empire. As a consequence, the French squad counts 3 South-Africans, 1 Fijian, 1 New-Zealander, 1 Belgian, a handful of catalans and a bloke from Castres.

Here is a subjective selection of famous and less famous players you should know about:

Scott Spedding

Scott is South-African born, and came to France to play the U21 World Cup. For some reason, he never left. There are rumors about a well orchestrated kidnapping involving bootleg alcohol from Brive and a severe “where the fuck am I?”-style hangover. Scott is a powerful fullback, with a long kick and some pace. When announced his selection he wept, winning the heart of the fiercest opponents to foreigners in the French team. For Philippe Saint-André, “We have no player with his profile. He is the archetypal professional athlete”. Says a lot. About the others.

Frédéric Michalak

Frédéric Michalak is a prodigy. Frédéric Michalak is a genius. Frederic Michalak is a guy with good days and bad days that plays fly half, so nobody likes him.

Sébastien Tillous-Bordes

That name sounds very French, doesn’t it? Sébastien is like a regular scrum half who would have trained with balls made of lead: he is a hefty bloke with a bit of a sluggish pass. He’s been very instrumental in Toulon’s victories in the past years, and allegedly knows a very good pharmacist.

Jean-Robert Cocotte

Jean-Robert is a talented scrum-half that played for very long in a 3rd division club near the Millau Bridge. But then one day he had a brilliant idea: he went to forge a south-African passport, and approached the Top14 clubs with his new identity, faking a german-like accent under the pseudonym of Rory Kockott. The Castres Olympique team signed him right away, for a very juicy salary, and after three years he won his first cap for France. It is absolutely true. I am not making that up.

Rémi Talès

Remi Talès is a good tackler. Rémi Talès has a good kicking game. Rémi Talès is a rather unknown, serious guy that plays fly-half, so nobody likes him here.

PICA

PICA BIG EIGHT. PICA RUN STRAIGHT. NOBODY STOP PICA. PICA CRUSH OPPONENT LIKE TRACTOR. PICA SLAMS TYRES. WHY YOU CONTINU ?

Thierry Dusautoir

Thierry is our most respected player. Nicknamed “The Dark Destroyer” (which is a bit racist in my opinion) for his shattering tackles, he’s been a bit on the decline lately. Still he remains the undisputed captain, despite not being the most charismatic guy on earth. His motto is “You shall not pass!”, which is a warning to the opponent as well as a reminder for himself.

Yannick Nyanga

He is a fast, physical flanker, with excellent abilities to carry the ball. He is excellent at tackling and turnovers, and he is tireless. He’s consistently been good on the pitch everytime he played. But in France, we don’t like smartasses, so he’s been mostly shining the bench with that smartass of his. He has a tendency to cry during the Marseillaise, as if it would make us forget he is a smartass.

Pascal Papé

The veteran Frenchman is the archetypal old-school, mean, violent lock. He is vicious. This is why he is our vice-captain.

The Fiji team

“What the hell is he talking about?” you will say. Well, the Fiji team is mostly made of players that play in France, and not necessarily at the top level. I don’t mean to alarm you, but some of the fellers that you had such a hard time shaking off, or that buried the English scrum in the first half play in third division. That was a bit embarrassing. Unfortunately we could not get all these guys to play for Les Bleus, so we picked Noa Nakaitaci hoping he would inject some fijian magic to our attack.

Right, that is all for now. We will post some more during the world cup if we’re not too busy drawing on our garlic-flavoured gauloises.