Rugby-New coaching trio face differing challenges

Philippe Saint-Andre hopes to end a century of alternating grandeur and chaos by imposing some stability on the France national rugby team.

Another Frenchman, former France assistant coach Jacques Brunel, is charged with introducing a more expansive game to a struggling Italy side.

England's Stuart Lancaster, the third new coach in the 2012 Six Nations championship opening on Feb. 4, would settle for overseeing performances sufficiently impressive to persuade the authorities to grant him the job on a fulltime basis.

Of the three, Saint-Andre has embarked on a mission which he himself acknowledges had proven beyond his predecessors and may be beyond the former winger, who scored two of the greatest tries ever witnessed in an international before enjoying a distinguished career as a coach.

France's 2011 calendar year encapsulated the mercurial nature of a side who can be brilliant and awful in consecutive weeks.

The French lost to Italy for the first time in the Six Nations championship and were then beaten by the tiny Pacific island of Tonga at the World Cup in New Zealand. Given up by even their own supporters as a lost cause, they bounced back to eliminate England and Wales in the knockout stages and gave the All Blacks an almighty fright before losing by a single point in the final.

BIGGEST CHALLENGE

On Wednesday, Saint-Andre was asked at the official Six Nations launch what he hoped to bring to the team. He gave a deep, expressive sigh before replying in the excellent English honed with his time as coach of Sale Sharks.

"We need to be more consistent but that has been French rugby for the last 100 years," he said. "We need to train to be more consistent, this is the biggest challenge in French rugby.

"Every four years they show that they can compete against the best teams in the world as they showed against New Zealand.

"It's very French, we are Latin, and we are Mediterranean. I think sometimes we are over-confident, we are not very focused in the contact area, we forget the hard work and we are bad. The week after we are fantastic.

"To be honest when the French team lost against Tonga, I was absolutely sure that they would beat England in the quarter-finals because that is the way of French rugby."

As they proved against New Zealand, France are strong in all the key areas and since the advent of professionalism the brutality which disfigured their game in the past has been largely, if not totally, eliminated.

Saint-Andre's task is to ensure the basics are always performed correctly in combination with those glorious moments of inspired improvisation which can confound any team in the world.

LANCASTER CHALLENGE

Despite Italy's shock win over France last season, they still finished bottom of the championship for the fourth year in a row. South African coach Nick Mallett departed and Brunel, the former coach at Perpignan, was appointed.

"Coaching a club is very different from coaching a national team," he said through an interpreter. "You don't have much time, you need to very efficient, but you also have to have huge ambitions, there is very little time."

Brunel said Italy had to improve in all areas. Captain and number eight Sergio Parisse, Italy's one player of true world class, elaborated.

Parisse said Italy needed to develop their back play to complement their rugged and widely respected forwards.

"We must be more creative, more balanced. We must keep the strength but be more dangerous, to have the balance between backs and forwards," Parisse said.

The Six Nations' coach in the least enviable position is Lancaster, who has impressed the English media with his refreshing candour after England failed to advance past the World Cup quarter-finals and were also involved in a number of embarrassing off-field incidents.

But Lancaster is a caretaker only after Martin Johnson's resignation and the Rugby Football Union have advertised the head coach position. The deadline is Feb. 15, just two games into England's title defence.

"I will be applying," Lancaster said. "The job has been advertised. It's a good job and I am sure there will be a lot of interest worldwide and in England.

"I knew when I took the job that it was an interim appointment and also knew that there was going to be a process to appoint a permanent head coach so it is not something I haven't expected."

England face a daunting opening match against Scotland on Feb. 4 at Murrayfield, where they have come unstuck often enough in the past, and the early praise for Lancaster will quickly evaporate if they lose there and struggle in the next fixture away against Italy.

"The priority for me is not about Stuart Lancaster and his individual position but about getting the team together, get a team cohesive and get the team to want to play hard together and represent the country well," Lancaster said.

""We want to be known as a humble, hard-working, honest team who graft and get on with the job and represent England with pride."

Admirable sentiments, but the reality is that even if he is successful in the short term, Lancaster may well have to relinquish his post in favour of a higher profile coach such as Mallett or New Zealander Wayne Smith.

Please double click on the newslink below:

for all sports stories