He believes he has the best squad ever available to a France rugby league coach, but Laurent Frayssinous has urged a “hungry” fan base back home to be patient with his World Cup hopefuls.
France are in-form England’s next opponents in Bolton on Saturday, but first they must navigate past an unknown quantity when they play Greece in Doncaster on Monday night.
”What we want to do at some point is to make history for France and that will start with Greece who will be a tough test,” Frayssinous tells The Sportsman. “We’ve been excited for the past few months and we want to keep on building and laying a platform for the future.”
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French rugby league has been a huge source of debate this year, with France set to host the next World Cup in 2025 and their newest Super League side, Toulouse Olympique, relegated from the top flight after just one season.
At least one rival Super League club has questioned the benefit of including French clubs in the top tier of the British game, as sports management company IMG sets about its brief of “reimagining rugby league”. It was a row that angered Catalans Dragons head coach Steve McNamara, and one underlining the need - for French supporters at least - to see a strong France side over the next month.
“As a French team we are pretty humble,” says Frayssinous. “We know where we are, we know that England are a great team, and that Samoa will bring a lot of NRL Superstars. But this is definitely the strongest French side I have seen.”
The 45-year old Frayssinous will move to England after the tournament, having been head-hunted by new St Helens boss Paul Wellens to work alongside him in his first season in charge of the champions.
He is a man drenched in French rugby league history, having played for and coached his country, and its proudest club export the Dragons. He has been in the game long enough to know that French rugby league requires patience - the kind of patience afforded to the Catalans in protecting their development from expansion gimmick to Challenge Cup winners and Super League contenders.
“The last time France beat England or Great Britain was 1990,” he says of the chances of France progressing through their group, recalling a 25-18 win at Headingley. “But at some point we want to make history during the World Cup, either this year or in 2025. That is why we are building and working hard.
“There is a lot of appetite in France for this tournament. We are all hungry and excited for this and have had a relationship for the last 12 months since we played England last October in Perpignan. We managed to have camps in between, work together and share together, so I am sure now we will deliver on the field.”
The development of French rugby league will benefit from the introduction of annual fixtures against England from next year - one of the first moves made by IMG to both grow the international game and develop the sport across the channel.
Captain Ben Garcia, himself a Catalans stalwart, shares his coach’s caution though, and admits they look at England as the benchmark.
“We look at England and we think that is the level we want to get to,” says Garcia. “But of course we know that is a long way off. I hope we will be there in a few years. They have the best players in the competition and NRL players too so we are humble and know where we are, and that is with a lot of work to do to get there, but we will improve.”
France will be buoyed by Samoa’s struggles against England at the weekend, and know that they will have an outside chance of springing a shock themselves, so long as they can open up with a confident victory of Greece.
“We will miss the experience of Theo Fages and Julien Bousquets,” adds Frayssinous of his missing old heads. “But this squad and this team is the best for years and maybe the best that France has ever had.
“They are all full-time and playing against the best in Super League for the last few years. It is great for me to coach great players and great people.”
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