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Bernard Laporte tweets reply to claim he is joining Galthie's France

(Photo by Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

Ex-France coach Bernard Laporte has taken to Twitter following a claim that he was reportedly set to join Fabien Galthie’s staff ahead of the upcoming Rugby World Cup. Laporte led the French national team for eight seasons at the turn of the millennium, coaching them to four Six Nations titles and two World Cup semi-final appearances.

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He followed that success with further glory at Toulon, winning a Top 14 title and a hat-trick of Heineken Champions Cups, before switching into rugby administration when elected president of the French federation in 2016. He went on to also become World Rugby vice-chairman but has since stepped back from those roles while under investigation.

In the meantime, he has been linked with a return to working with the France national team following on from a speech given to the squad in February prior to the start of the recent Guinness Six Nations, while he also presented the team with their jerseys for last month’s round five match versus Wales.

It was also claimed that he regularly exchanged text messages with players, highlighting his ongoing close relationship with Galthie and team manager Raphael Ibanez, a duo that played under him when he was the France boss during the noughties.

Le Parisien reported a formal collaboration could now take place between the France team and Laporte. A source claimed: “It was a desire at the end of the tournament to find Bernard a consulting function, a mission of accompaniment to the XV of France. A desire shared by Fabien and Raphael by way of recognition. He invested in the staff of the XV de France and gave them the means to achieve their ambitions.”

The story prompted Laporte to issue a response on his Twitter account denying that he is looking for a role with the team. “With Fabien Galthie, I built a staff of 30 people who have been working for four years,” he wrote.

“The results speak for themselves: more than 80 per cent of victories, Grand Slam, longest series of invincibility in the history of the XV of France… There is no reason to modify this staff.”

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BR2B 819 days ago

I don’t think the French squad need Laporte. Especially before the frauds he’s accused of are (eventually) dismissed

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AllyOz 57 minutes ago
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Umm…really not sure about Les. I like the way the Reds are playing under him most of the time. But they seem a bit all or nothing at the moment. They have one way to play and if that starts going wrong, they don’t seem to have a plan B. I think they have gone for LK because he is as close as they can to keeping JS for the full four year term and through the RWC. But he hasn’t really ever won anything and he is 60 years old and been in the coaching game for 20 years, so I understand the trepidation some people have. I think it will be OK but that is based more on hope than anything else. I think for financial reasons and also so that they don’t leave Queensland without a coach, that they have delayed his start. I would have preferred that he, at the very least, did the Northern Tour with JS and then took the reigns - it seems less than ideal to delay his start date until after June 2026.


A lot of Oz fans are anti-Cheika - his last 18 - 24 months weren’t great. I personally would like to see him coach Australia again. I think he has consistently proven he is our best qualified coach and I think he is better than when he was there in 2019. A lot of people think that Raelene Castle was a good administrator but I am not in that camp. The Israel Folau situation and the impact it had on some other Polynesian players (Kerevi and Tupou are both on record for saying it caused a split) would have also been extremely difficult to manage. As a former coach (in lower grades) I can’t imagine how I would have been able to handle that side of things in terms of team unity, the demands of the press, and all the additional pressure it placed on the unit.


So, my choice would be to bring Cheika back, but after 2027 (if someone else doesn’t emerge in the meantime). I see LK as part of the JS era (sort of Obama/Biden vibes). Cheika will want to revolutionise and, while I think that will be fine, I don’t think 18 months out from the next RWC is the time to do it. We did that with Eddie and it had diabolical results and I think we are all a bit gun shy about doing the same thing again.

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