![\"France](\"https:\/\/images.ps-aws.com\/c?url=https%3A%2F%2Fd3gbf3ykm8gp5c.cloudfront.net%2Fcontent%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F01%2F01145321%2FFrance-in-a-huddle-and-Rassie-Erasmus-1-1320x742.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Rassie Erasmus was praised for blooding individuals looking ahead to the 2027 Rugby World Cup, using a remarkable 50 players in 2024.<\/b><\/p>\n
They also enjoyed a stellar year, despite the continual rotation, as they won 11 out of 13 matches and claimed the Rugby Championship title.<\/p>\n
Erasmus\u00a0gave plenty of players an opportunity as they build towards the World Cup in Australia, but he \u2013 and the\u00a0Boks\u00a0\u2013 were eclipsed by\u00a0France\u00a0in that respect last year.<\/p>\n
Incredibly, according to\u00a0L\u2019Equipe<\/i>, Les Bleus head coach Fabien Galthie gave 75 different players a cap in 2024 \u2013 25 more than South Africa \u2013 with 22 of those making their debuts.<\/p>\n
There is a caveat in that the French always send a severely weakened squad on their mid-year tour and their series with Argentina was no different, where 11 donned the jersey for the first time.<\/p>\n
To their credit, they managed to defeat Los Pumas 28-13 despite the mass rotation before the South Americans got their revenge a week later, emerging 33-25 triumphant.<\/p>\n
That rather summed up what was a mixed year for the French, who struggled at times in the Six Nations and won just three of their five matches.<\/p>\n
They ended the year strongly, though, with a 30-29 victory over the All Blacks the highlight, which suggests that Les Bleus are building nicely towards the global tournament in Australia.<\/p>\n
They will go into the upcoming Six Nations full bore before once again rotating in July when they take on New Zealand, a move which has caused controversy.<\/p>\n
Galthie has explained their plan for this four-year cycle, which hints at why there has been a huge amount of rotation in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe follow a hundred players,\u201d he said in June. \u201cBut above all, we have identified a \u2018premium\u2019 group of 20 players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want them to have consistent development. We want to work hand in hand with the league and the clubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is for players to be able to give the best of themselves in the French team, but also in club. We want to go further while taking into account the challenges of the clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the New Zealand tour controversy, Galthie would not be budged and insisted that sending over weakened squads for the mid-year tours has always been France\u2019s preference.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe built on trust while adjusting the management of the international season by choosing to rest our \u2018premium\u2019 during the summer tours,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a first step. We want to go even further which will mean that we will go on tour in the summer of 2025 in New Zealand without our \u2018premium\u2019 players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been like this for four years. Why change strategy? Because we\u2019re travelling to the All Blacks? You have to be consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rassie Erasmus was praised for blooding individuals looking ahead to the 2027 Rugby World Cup, using a remarkable 50 players in 2024. They also enjoyed a stellar year, despite the continual rotation, as they won 11 out of 13 matches and claimed the Rugby Championship title. Erasmus\u00a0gave plenty of players an opportunity as they build […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10.webp",1320,742,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-300x169.webp",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-768x432.webp",768,432,true],"large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-1024x576.webp",1024,576,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10.webp",1320,742,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10.webp",1320,742,false],"jnews-360x180":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-360x180.webp",360,180,true],"jnews-750x375":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-750x375.webp",750,375,true],"jnews-1140x570":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-1140x570.webp",1140,570,true],"jnews-120x86":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-120x86.webp",120,86,true],"jnews-350x250":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-350x250.webp",350,250,true],"jnews-750x536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-750x536.webp",750,536,true],"jnews-1140x815":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-1140x742.webp",1140,742,true],"jnews-360x504":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-360x504.webp",360,504,true],"jnews-75x75":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-75x75.webp",75,75,true],"jnews-350x350":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-350x350.webp",350,350,true],"jnews-featured-750":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-750x422.webp",750,422,true],"jnews-featured-1140":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10-1140x641.webp",1140,641,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Newssoccer","author_link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Blog<\/a>","tag_info":"Blog","comment_count":"0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/c-10.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6726,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions\/6726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}