Paul Lewis: Laporte is losing his joie de vivre

What has happened to French rugby? For years, rugby folk have referred to the French as the most vividly talented bunch in the world. To play the French is the rugby equivalent of Russian roulette - will they fire this time? When they do, the result is breathtaking: a ballet of instinctive running and passing, a thing of beauty that cannot be coached, only enjoyed.

Where's that gone? One of the greatest ironies is watching today's France and seeing Jo Maso sit alongside coach Bernard Laporte with the same, impassive look on his face. Maso, for many years regarded as perhaps the most incisive player ever to visit these shores. Maso, the man who entranced Eden Park with his running and passing from first five-eighths in 1968 when the French embarrassed the All Blacks (even if they didn't win) with their skills.

Or Didier Cordoniou, the little midfield darter and wonderful timer of a pass, who brought the All Blacks down in 1979 on Eden Park and where the home crowd ended up cheering for the French because they were playing the real rugby. Or 1994 and Jean-Luc Sadourny's "try from the ends of the earth", again at Eden Park ... the list goes on.

Laporte signalled the changes that have afflicted the French game in his halftime interview at Twickenham last week. Asked what he had told his team, he said he'd told them to stop making mistakes and play the game in English territory. That was it. That was the strategy. There would be no blinding flash of talent and skill, no "remember the Bastille". Make your tackles, get it down there and let Dimitri Yachvili kick the goals. So, no joie de vivre, then Bernard?

Look at the backs. At the now dropped Brian Liebenberg and Damien Traille. Oh dear. Christophe Dominici seems to have lost his verve on the wing and Pepito Elhorga, now also dropped, looks nervous, not yet able to transfer his running skills onto the international stage.

As for Yann Delaigue at first five-eighths, it's impossible to see how he's keeping Frederic Michalak - exactly the kind of erratic genius that has lit up French rugby over the years - out of the team.

There's no doubt that the French powered up in the rucks and mauls in the second half against England. And, of course, this is where rugby is still won or lost - in the forwards.

But there is another element to the game, one of the last great physical challenges in team sport. It has a creative element. The purists can crack on about the joys of a rolling maul and scrummaging all they like. It has its place, for sure.

But there's an extra dimension in rugby. Magic is what ignites any sport. In rugby that tends to come from the backs or from ball-winning forwards taking a hand in running, passing and scoring tries. The last-minute, game-winning try fashioned from desperation and executed with skill is the nirvana of the game (nirvana being the ultimate attainment of liberation). It's what memories are made of. It's what makes people want to play the game.

Forwards win games. Try-scoring defines them. Lose the latter and the former has less meaning. It's like buying the Taj Mahal and covering it in plastic to protect it from the elements.

Get over it, Bernard. Give up the practical, percentage approach. Select the expressive players and set enough of a platform for them to express themselves.

What we're looking at isn't French. It's ... well, English. And it's not working.