French squad unhappy at coach’s criticism via the media

France coach Marc Lievremont’s fractious relationship with his players has re-emerged with scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili upset that criticism of their unimpressive opening World Cup win against Japan was expressed through the media.

Lievremont lambasted his players in a news conference on Sunday for allowing Japan to close the gap to 25-21 after trailing 20-3 in the team’s opening Pool A match. France scored six tries to eventually win 47-21 on Saturday but Lievremont was angry at the lacklustre display.

The half-back pairing of Yachvili and No 10 Francois Trinh-Duc came in for some particularly harsh words, while flanker Imanol Harinordoquy was vilified by Lievremont for his attitude on the pitch.

Yachvili was annoyed that he heard the criticism from a journalist rather than from Lievremont before the conference.

“It’s a real pleasure, it’s touching,” Yachvili said sarcastically. “No, I would prefer to be told directly rather than going through the press. He spoke out in anger. I probably deserved him saying it, or not. (But) I would rather it happened another way.”

Lievremont launched an astonishing attack on his team in March after they lost to Italy in the Six Nations, describing his players as “cowards” and threatening to refuse to select some of them to ever wear the national jersey again.

He later apologised for his outburst, but for the second World Cup in a row France will replace their coach at the end of the tournament. Lievremont took over from Bernard Laporte after the 2007 tournament and Philippe Saint-Andre will become coach after this one.

Yachvili, a veteran of 53 caps, makes way for Morgan Parra against Canada in France’s match on Sunday. It is one of 11 changes Lievremont has made, the coach saying the decision to refresh the squad was “not a punishment” but made with New Zealand in mind.

With two bruising matches to come against the All Blacks and Tonga, Lievremont wants to avoid of injury to his key players.

Aurelien Rougerie, who will captain France with flanker Thierry Dusautoir rested for the match, also felt Lievremont could have cut his players a little slack.

“We’re not naive, either,” Rougerie said. “We know how we did. We weren’t happy with our own performance.”