Rugby World Cup 2015: French media respond to 'national humiliation'

Rory Kockott of France is dejected following the scoring of a New Zealand try during the 2015 Rugby World Cup Quarter Final match. Photo / Getty Images.

Humiliation, shame, pathetic and pitiful - they were just a few of the barbs tossed at the French by their media after their harrowing record loss to the All Blacks in the Rugby World Cup finals.

Philippe Saint-Andre and his players awoke to a storm of controversy across the English channel as the French media vented following the 62-13 defeat at the hands of New Zealand at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.

The grim defeat has plunged France into a bout of soul-searching about its whole approach to the sport. Asked how the country should respond to what amounted to a "national humiliation", the former centre-right sports minister, Rama Yade, told iTele TV that France "must not give in to panic" but must calmly sit down and learn the lessons from the defeat.

But the media were outraged by France's performance. Respected sports paper L'Equipe headlined its report "The disaster" before warning that France was now just a minor rugby nation. Le Monde called it "Black Saturday". La Dépêche du Midi called it the "ultimate disaster" saying French rugby "had fallen into ridicule".

It was a common them across a despairing country with regional papers running front-page headlines reading "Humiliated".

Le Parisien said the French team had given a "pathetic and pitiable" image and the match was "grotesque". The paper said that France's game was so far from the All Blacks that "one wonders if the two teams were playing the same sport".

Many media outlets said they had been warning of the impending disaster for years and felt the only good thing to emerge from the defeat was that the reign of coach Saint-André was now over.

Le Figaro warned that the French rugby team had inflicted "humiliation, pain and despair" on their supporters and that the "trauma of the players would take some time to recover from." The paper said French rugby had seen its "day of shame", and "we hope a revolution will follow."

Analysts have also predicted a painful post-mortem pulling apart everything from the professional club system, dominance of foreign stars, training, youth opportunities and the heavy fixtures calendar.

Already former World Cup-winning All Blacks coach Sir Graham Henry has stated publicly that France's "ridiculous" domestic competition was ruining their rugby - a charge made by current boss Steve Hansen in the lead-up to last week's sudden death encounter.