A Grand Slam in 1997. Another Grand Slam in 1998. Two great victories that should have given this French team Europe's best chance of winning the World Cup. Instead, this French team simply hopes to qualify, to beat Canada, Namibia and Fiji, and play their quarterfinal in Dublin.

The game that everybody expects, the French and the Irish, provides the clearest opportunity for a team from the Northern Hemisphere to play in the semi-finals. A kind of "double or quits" for the Tricolores. A victory on October 24th in Lansdowne Road and it will be a successful World Cup campaign with the feeling that everything is possible. A defeat and it will be a major failure, leaving an impression of huge waste.

For France, 1999 has been the worst of years. After a miraculous escape with victory in Ireland came a first defeat against Wales in Paris since 1975, defeat against England at Twickenham and defeat against Scotland at Stade de France (only the second in Paris since 1969).

Finishing last in the Five Nations Championship, France has just completed one of the poorest seasons in its history. Then came the tour in the Southern Hemisphere. There was victory in Apia against Samoa (who played most of that game with 13 players) but a terrible defeat against Tonga before the crash in the first Test in Wellington and finally an All Blacks' lesson: 54-7.

Since their victory over Argentina last October in Nantes, France's form has turned head over heels. Seven defeats in 11 games over the past year - this is poor form for a French team. Yesterday's winners have fallen so far: doubt has invaded the French camp.

The team has lost direction. Coaches are not getting through to the players. The French XV have lost the defensive aggression on which they built success over two years and they have lost the one advantage they always had over other teams - opponents are no longer afraid of them. Shocking!

A few weeks ago, during a weeklong session in Font-Romeu, Thomas Castaignede was adamant that it was "the number 10 jersey or number 17" for him. In other words, out-half or nothing. An ultimatum that a lot of people in France didn't understand. In this position, he is, at the moment, very far off the level he was in 1998 when he ignited Wembley against Wales (51-0). Why? Simply a question of confidence. Centre against New Zealand last June, he did not compare very well with his friend and team-mate Ugo Mola, who behaved in an exemplary manner on and off the field and also showed real leadership.

So the coach of the French backs, Pierre Villepreux, wanted Mola as out-half and Castaignede as centre. But the day after the most recent defeat by Wales, in a friendly in Cardiff at the end of August, when Castaignede played at out-half, Jo Maso, the French manager, told the media: "Thomas will play the World Cup as number 10. We need him, anyway."

Now, you can buy T-Shirts in France adorned with the number 10 and the name Castaignede. But how will he perform during the next few weeks? That's a big question. And there's more trouble. For example, Midi Olympique, the rugby weekly, stated this summer that Raphael Ibanez, the national team captain, is rated the fifthbest hooker in French rugby. Not the best in his position? Not the man to lead the French team? The debate rages on, and the upcoming games will test his capacity to react and to bring the team together.

There are other troubles, too. Jean-Luc Sadourny, Fabien Galthie and Philippe Benetton have not been picked in the squad. "I didn't expect that. I still don't understand, especially the way it happened," says Sadourny.

These three wonderful players are actually playing their best rugby, especially scrum-half Galthie. With Colomiiers he has simply been the best player in the French Championship for the past month.

And scrum-half is a key position on the national team. After the bad knee injury Philippe Carbonneau suffered, Galthie had to be the solution. But France's head coach Jean-Claude Skrela, Maso and Villepreux preferred to select Pierre Mignoni and Stephane Castaignede, who between them have six caps.

Maybe they did this so that they could control their squad, to expel a natural leader who could be dangerous for them: men like Galthie, Sadourny and Benetton have huge experience and don't want to listen to things they don't trust.

Galthie was punished for this attitude during the last tour. He said he wanted the team to focus on the basics before thinking about expansive rugby. "Rugby is straight away a fight," he opined. "We should not forget that." However, the coaches did not appreciate this position, nor Galthie's general attitude.

But what is to be made of the presence in the squad of such players as the centre Desbrosses, the prop De Villiers, the flanker Mallier, the wing Marlu? Cedric Desbrosses won the French Championship final with Toulouse in June but Skrela and Villepreux did not select him for the tour, arguing at the time that he lacked experience at international level.

The result? This fine player is finally in the squad, but with no international experience, neither with French national team nor with France A. The South African with Stade Francais, Pieter De Villiers, has played only one game, the friendly against Wales in August. De Villiers was preferred to his team-mate Sylvain Marconnet, who had a very good season and over the last year has proved that he has the ability to compete at international level. Mallier has been judged on only one game, and as for Marlu, his sole Test came a year ago against Fiji. Meanwhile, players like Lombard or Gomes, strong and fast, seemed to show more potential on a more regular basis, but they were overlooked.

Since October 1995, when Skrela became the coach, 90 players have been selected. It certainly proves the depth of French rugby but also an incapacity to make the best of it. In '95, the French coach started with a victory in the Latin Cup in Argentina and a victory against All Blacks in Toulouse.

It was the beginning for Castaignede, Dourthe and Pelous, and such a good start generated lot of expectation. But now the question is: where has been the progression? France, who showed so much organisation not so long ago at at the highest level, seem now to have lost all their gains.

"We are not anxious," said Maso after the defeat against Wales last month. But this is the same man who swore before the ill-fated tour at the beginning of June: "We are sure to succeed on our tour."

"We have to work," adds Skrela. "We don't believe in miracles, only in work. We won't be going to Lourdes before we play Canada in our first game." But what kind of work? On the defence that was shot through during the last Five Nations, or the scrum which creaked against Wales one month ago, or the less than skilful first phases? At things stand, France has not played games of enough significance to prove it is on the mend. The four matches in the past month were against Beziers (a second-division team), the B team of Perpignan, a selection of minor Basque clubs and, finally, Brive.

That last game, it is true, created hope, but it was a relatively meaningless match. Thus, these games cannot dispel the fear that the Tricolores will have more doubts than certainties when they meet Canada in Beziers on October 2nd, for there is trouble also with injuries.

The last year has been terrible in that regard and partly explains such a disastrous 12 months. Califano, Benazzi, Pelous, Brouzet, Marc and Thomas Lievremont, Magne, Carbonneau, Castaignede, Glas, Dourthe and Dominici have all been affected this season.

While some of them came back at 100 per cent, like Benazzi, the Lievremont brothers, Magne and Dominici, we still don't know about the form of Califano and Brouzet. But the biggest question is how the Glas-Dourthe midfield pairing will perform. In their absence, not one player provided a solution.

The experiment with N'tamack at centre has been a complete failure; Castaignede doesn't want it; Comba and Giordani showed their limitations during the Five Nations. This sector has been the Achilles heel of the French team this season, that part of the game where the major teams build their victories nowadays.

Going into the competition without this crucial force is an impossible challenge. But French rugby is such that you can also hope for the best. If the pack regains its power and its aggression, driven forward by Califano, Pelous and Benazzi, if the backs can break loose and play with real French flair then everything is possible.

The possible first-choice team gives some hope. Califano, Ibanez and Tournaire in the front row; Pelous, Benazzi or Brouzet in the second row; Magne, Marc and Thomas Lievremont in the back row, Mignoni and Castaignede as the halves, Glas and Dourthe as centres, Dominici and N'tamack on the wings, and Mola as full back.

We have a dream, only a dream. After all, last year there was a huge debate about the way Aime Jacquet had prepared his team before the soccer World Cup and with it a lot of doubts. We know what happened.

Rugby is not soccer, of course, but Skrela and Villepreux can thank St Aime. Up to now, they have been spared by the critics. So, to a rendezvous in Dublin, when the moment of truth will come.