{"id":318890,"date":"2011-03-18T07:28:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T07:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/2011\/03\/18\/gatland-questions-french-fitness\/"},"modified":"2011-03-18T07:28:19","modified_gmt":"2011-03-18T07:28:19","slug":"gatland-questions-french-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/03\/18\/gatland-questions-french-fitness\/","title":{"rendered":"Gatland questions French fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div>\n                        <!-- S BO --><\/p>\n<p><span><b>Six Nations: FRANCE v WALES <\/b><br \/><b>Venue: <\/b>Stade de France, Paris <b>Date: <\/b>Sat, 19 March <b>Kick-off:<\/b> 1945 GMT <br \/><b>Coverage:<\/b> Watch live on BBC One, BBC One HD &#038; online from 1930-2200; Listen on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru &#038; BBC Radio 5 Live; Text commentary on BBC Sport website and mobiles<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<div readability=\"32\">\n<div>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" name=\"holdingImage\" class=\"holding\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/de4154e6h_grab_1703.jpg.jpg\" alt=\"George North\" id=\"holdingImage\" \/><\/p>\n<div readability=\"7\">\n<p><strong>Please turn on JavaScript.<\/strong> Media requires JavaScript to play. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t<!-- embedding script --><\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t<!-- caption --><\/p>\n<p>North &#8216;ready&#8217; for France test<\/p>\n<p><!-- END - caption -->\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- S SF --><\/p>\n<p><b>Wales coach Warren Gatland has questioned the fitness of France&#8217;s forwards ahead of their Six Nations clash in Paris on Saturday.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Gatland believes a high ball-in-play-time could be to his side&#8217;s benefit at Stade de France. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we can keep the ball in play for over 40 minutes&#8230; we just think the French may struggle a little bit up front,&#8221; said the New Zealander. <\/p>\n<p>Wales go into the game on the back of three successive wins. <\/p>\n<p><!-- E SF --><\/p>\n<p>They lost on the opening night, 26-19 to England, but bounced back with victories against Scotland, 24-6, Italy, 24-16 and Ireland, 19-13. <\/p>\n<p>That leaves Wales second in the table to Grand Slam-chasing England, who face Ireland in Dublin ahead of Gatland&#8217;s side&#8217;s night-time clash in Paris. <\/p>\n<p>France lmade history by losing 22-21 to Italy in Rome in the last round, prompting a bout of soul-searching and harsh words in the French camp.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t    <!-- S IBOX --><\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"231\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\" readability=\"1.5\">\n<tr readability=\"3\">\n<td width=\"5\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/0ca56104o.gif\" width=\"5\" height=\"1\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/td>\n<td readability=\"4\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>\t\t\t<b>There&#8217;s not a lot of difference now between us and the top teams in terms of territory and possession<\/b><br \/>\n\t\t<br clear=\"all\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"7\">\n<p>Wales coach Warren Gatland<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p><!-- E IBOX --><\/p>\n<p>Gatland is hopeful his side can add to French problems in World Cup year. <\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8220;We want to ask some questions about the French forwards in terms of their fitness levels,&#8221; said Gatland. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When teams kick a lot of ball at you, sometimes you&#8217;re forced into having to reply with a kick to play a little bit of ping-pong, a little bit of a territory game, which we were forced into a bit last week against Ireland,&#8221; said Gatland. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But hopefully this week it&#8217;ll give us an opportunity to keep the ball on the park. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Fitness-wise we feel like we&#8217;re in pretty good shape. We&#8217;ve worked hard in this campaign. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want to ask some questions about the French forwards in terms of their fitness levels and if we can keep the ball in play for over 40 minutes &#8211; the last couple of games have been over 40 minutes of ball in play, which is a lot &#8211; we just think the French may struggle a little bit up front.<\/p>\n<p><!-- S IIMA --><\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"226\" cellpadding=\"0\" readability=\"1\">\n<tr readability=\"2\">\n<td readability=\"4\">\n<div readability=\"7\">\n\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/fc2f4313pic_get466.jpg.jpg\" width=\"226\" height=\"170\" alt=\"France's Jerome Thion and Julien Bonnaire are dejected after defeat in Rome\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>France are dejected after their 22-21 defeat by Italy<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p><!-- E IIMA --><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve worked really hard in this campaign in terms of the amount of work these guys have done in the gym and their fitness and we think physically we&#8217;re in great shape. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s an aspect that we&#8217;ve been improving on all the time and it&#8217;s been a massive focus for us in the last two or three seasons, sometimes to the detriment of our game because we have put a huge focus on that. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And I&#8217;ve kept saying to compete against the best teams in the world we&#8217;ve got to be able to compete against them physically. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can go out and get one-off wins and I think if you look at the last year or so, yes we&#8217;ve lost games, but at least we know we&#8217;re in the game physically and there&#8217;s not a lot of difference now between us and the top teams in terms of territory and possession.&#8221; <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><b>France:<\/b> M Medard (Toulouse); V Clerc (Toulouse), D Marty (Perpignan), D Traille (Biarritz), A Palisson (Brive); F Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), M Parra (Clermont); T Domingo (Clermont), W Servat (Toulouse), N Mas (Perpignan), J Pierre (Clermont), L Nallet (Racing-Metro), T Dusautoir (Toulouse, capt), J Bonnaire (Clermont), I Harinordoquy (Biarritz).<br \/><b>Replacements:<\/b> G Guirado (Perpignan), L Ducalcon (Castres), P Pape (Stade Francais), A Lapandry (Clermont), J Tomas, (Montpellier), F Estebanez (Brive), Y Huget (Bayonne). <\/p>\n<p><b>Wales:<\/b> Lee Byrne; Leigh Halfpenny, Jamie Roberts, Jonathan Davies, George North; James Hook, Mike Phillips; Paul James, Matthew Rees (capt), Adam Jones, Bradley Davies, Alun Wyn Jones, Dan Lydiate, Sam Warburton, Ryan Jones.<br \/><b>Replacements:<\/b> Richard Hibbard, John Yapp, Jonathan Thomas, Rob McCusker, Dwayne Peel, Stephen Jones, Morgan Stoddart.\n<\/p>\n<p><!-- E BO --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/de4154e6h_grab_1703.jpg-150x150.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>See more here:<br \/>\n<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/go\/rss\/-\/sport1\/hi\/rugby_union\/welsh\/9428472.stm\" title=\"Gatland questions French fitness\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gatland questions French fitness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Six Nations: FRANCE v WALES Venue: Stade de France, Paris Date: Sat, 19 March Kick-off: 1945 GMT Coverage: Watch live on BBC One, BBC One HD &#038; online from 1930-2200; Listen on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru &#038; BBC Radio 5 Live; Text commentary on BBC Sport website and mobiles Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Gatland questions French fitness - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2011\/03\/18\/gatland-questions-french-fitness\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Gatland questions French fitness - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Six Nations: FRANCE v WALES Venue: Stade de France, Paris Date: Sat, 19 March Kick-off: 1945 GMT Coverage: Watch live on BBC One, BBC One HD &amp; online from 1930-2200; Listen on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru &amp; BBC Radio 5 Live; Text commentary on BBC Sport website and mobiles Please turn on JavaScript. 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