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PARIS - France players will search the skies on Saturday, hoping for no sign of the heavy rain they endured when England crushed their dreams in the World Cup semi-finals four years ago in Sydney.
France, facing the same opponents at the same stage on Saturday at the Stade de France (1900 GMT), had advanced to the last four in promising fashion in 2003 but fell to a determined England side and the merciless boot of Jonny Wilkinson.
"If it rains, we're dead," France coach Bernard Laporte had said on the eve of that match.
Indeed it rained and France looked lost on a muddy pitch, Wilkinson kicking all his team's points in the eventual champions' 24-7 win.
"That defeat has been on my mind since," said lock Jerome Thion, one of many players in the current France squad who were on the field that day. "We were humiliated. We felt helpless. Of course I'll be thinking about it on Saturday."
Forwards coach Jacques Brunel understood even before the match that France were in trouble.
"I remember hearing rain falling heavily on the bus," he recalled. "Suddenly I felt everybody become nervous. It upset me because I understood the rain meant we would not be able to play the way we had planned."
Thinking about that game too much would not help, warned France captain Raphael Ibanez.
"It was a terrible disappointment," he said. "I couldn't give you just one image because I have so many in my head. Walking back to the locker rooms, we were all sad, lost."
Ibanez was so depressed after the game that he announced his international retirement, only to change his mind later.
"Maybe I felt something was unfulfilled," he said of his decision to play for France again.
"What happened that night might give us some extra motivation on Saturday," he added. "However, it would be a mistake for us to keep referring to that game."
Laporte agreed: "We don't care about history," he said. "We're starting from scratch."
Before the 2003 showdown, all eyes were on the two standoffs, France's Frederic Michalak, the revelation of the tournament that far, and Wilkinson.
On the day, Michalak failed to live up to huge expectations while Wilkinson was at his clinical best.
Now the number two France first five-eighths behind newcomer Lionel Beauxis, Michalak refuses to consider that his promising career might have been derailed by his below-par performance that night.
"I was young, I was 20," he said. "Playing the World Cup was fantastic and so was reaching the semi-final. I still feel that way."
- REUTERS
