Interview: Serge Betson, rugby player

Published on Saturday 13 March 2010 21:03

FRANCE will regret it if they take Italy lightly, hard-hitting flanker Serge Betsen tells Iain Morrison

FRANCE first played Italy way back in 1935, overrunning the Italians by 44-6. Italy lost every ensuing Test match against Les Blues right up until 1967 when the French finally tired of this uneven contest and began fielding reserve line-ups under a "French XV" flag of convenience. The results remained the same, at least until 1983 when the Italians earned a hard-fought 6-6 draw in Rovigo, and again a decade later when the Azzurri eventually won 16-9 in Treviso. But the celebrations were muted: it was not an official Test match, Italy awarded caps, but France did not. At least that result ensured that France paid a little more respect to their neighbours and full scale internationals between the two countries resumed in 1995. It was just in time.

On 22 March, 1997 the Italian team beat the full French side by 40-32, outscoring them by four tries to three, and what's more, history was made on French soil, the victory unfolding at Stade Lesdiguieres in Grenoble. It remains the only Test victory that Italy has savoured against France and, as if to show their displeasure, Les Blues have not returned to the city since that defeat.

Back in 1997 most people probably gave Italy about as much chance as they do today, although the Azzurri had only recently claimed the Irish scalp in Dublin. The French team had just come off the back of a Grand Slam season and was chock full of veterans such as Jean-Luc Sardourny and the twin Philippes: Saint Andre and Benetton. Fabien Pelous played No8 and the redoubtable Franck Tournaire anchored the scrum. In fact five forwards who had recently clinched the Grand Slam by beating Scotland turned out that day. Just one Frenchman made his debut in Grenoble, a young, Cameroon-born flanker called Tchoua, now better known as Serge Betsen.

"Yeah, that was my first French experience and it was a very mixed day for me," Betsen, now in his second season at London Wasps, says. "I was very pleased to be involved, I think I played about 20 minutes from the reserve bench and I didn't make any big mistakes, which was good.

"However, the French team had won a Grand Slam and the people of Grenoble were very pleased that the team played in the city, but they just did not expect us to lose to Italy. Of course we were booed off the pitch at the end and the press gave us a very hard time. I suppose at least we were able to help Italy to enter into the Five/Six Nations by losing that day, not that it was part of our plan, you understand!

"I thought that my first game for France was going to be my last. I was not at all confident that I would get another chance because there were lots of good players in my position."

He needn't have worried. Betsen went on to win 63 French caps and was probably the best defensive flanker of his generation, certainly from the northern hemisphere. He famously marked England's Jonny Wilkinson out of the game in 2002 – the poor playmaker was subbed early in the second half – to ensure another French Grand Slam and Betsen won the Sportsman of the Year award in France for his trouble.

Looking back on the events of 1997 he is able to sift through the rubble of what he then believed would be one of the world's shortest Test careers and pick out some positives from defeat.

"The important thing for me was that I saw what I had to do to be in the French team. That defeat made me train harder, work on improving my skills and adding some muscle in the gym – basically doing everything I could to make sure that I was picked again." It may have taken three years between Betsen's first cap and his second but the tactic paid off.

As to this afternoon's match, the flanker known as la Faucheuse (the Reaper) does not imagine a repeat of his debut defeat all those years ago but does caution against taking the Italians lightly, not that the French coach was listening. Marc Lievremont has dropped the giant Mathieu Bastareaud to the bench to allow David Marty a start. Since "Bas" has been the stand-out centre of the tournament to date, it looks like he is being rested ahead of what is expected to be a Grand Slam showdown with England next weekend.

Diminutive Castres winger Marc Andreu, pictured left, is the only other change, winning his second cap after getting just a few minutes off the bench against Wales. He stands just five feet, five inches tall and tips the scales at 11 stones. He is nine inches shorter and at least four stones lighter than the man he replaces, Julien Malzieu, but Andreu is quick and as slippery as a jellied eel.

Andreu warned his team-mates not to expect an easy game this afternoon and Betsen echoes those sentiments exactly.

"Italy are a good team and they are improving tournament by tournament," he says. "The French team should win but they need to be careful."

The one disappointment in Betsen's illustrious rugby career has been France's failure to win a World Cup and almost everything that Lievremont has done to date has been aimed at New Zealand, 2011. The coach tried large numbers of players in his debut year and only now, 18 months out from the big one, is he beginning to bed down a starting XV.

"Over the last ten years France have proven that they can exist at the very highest levels of rugby," says Betsen. "Before we look towards the World Cup we need to win the matches that are in front of us. If we stay focused we will win the Six Nations and that is the important thing right now. The problem for the World Cup is that the French team is up, down, up, down. What we need is consistency at the highest level."

That was never a problem for one of France's most reliable "reapers".

France: Poitrenaud; Andreu, Marty, Jauzion, Palisson; Trinh-Duc, Parra; Domingo, Servat, Mas, Nallet, Pierre, Dusautoir, Bonnaire, Harinordoquy. Replacements: Szarzewski, Poux, Chabal, Lapandry, Yachvili, Bastareaud, Malzieu.

Italy: McLean; Masi, Canale, Garcia, Bergamasco; Gower, Tebaldi; Perugini, Ghiraldini (captain), Castrogiovanni, Geldenhuys, Bortolami, Sole, Bergamasco, Zanni. Replacements: Ongaro, Aguero, Del Fava, Derbyshire, Canavosio, Bocchino, Robertson.

Referee: Alan Lewis