French Rugby
Lievremont plays down rugby return
ESPN Staff
August 9, 2012
France's coach Marc Lievremont ponders what might have been, New Zealand v France, Rugby World Cup Final, Eden Park, Auckland, New Zealand, October 23, 2011
Marc Lievremont failed to guide his team to World Cup glory © Getty Images
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Former France boss Marc Lievremont has admitted that he is unsure whether he will ever return to rugby after leaving the national post back in October 2011.

Lievremont led Les Bleus to the final of the 2011 World Cup but his reign was fraught with in-fighting within the French side. The former 25-cap international has since turned his attention to a business with his brother Thomas and although linked with a couple of Top 14 Orange coaching posts in the past, Lievremont seems content living and working away from the game.

"I feel like I've been lucky," Lievremont told Total Rugby. "My life has always been governed by favourable encounters, meetings rugby people or I've been able to express myself with passion.

"Now I want to turn a page and throw myself into a new project. Maybe one day the opportunity and the desire will be there to come back into rugby but for the moment, why I'm not saying it'll never happen, I'm not looking out for it."

Lievremont's French side fell at the final hurdle in the World Cup to the All Blacks but despite his time with the national team ending on a sour note - including a shock defeat to Tonga in the Pool Stages - he insists that he has no regrets over how he handled his tenure.

"In four years we went through a lot: disappointment and failure and some great performances," he said. "I wouldn't say I'm proud but I definitely have the feeling of having done my job.

"When I took it on it was important that I did it my way, backed myself and did what I thought was right. And I finished the World Cup at peace with the feeling of having done my duty and having no regrets. I feel like I lived through a great human adventure."

Lievremont will know more than most about the workings of the FFR (French Rugby Federation), having spend four years in the hot seat in charge of the national side, and he has called on the union and the separate stakeholders to work closer together in the future.

"What I'd like to see, what I dream of, is a stronger more unified French rugby scene with the national and club interests both at heart pulling together, even if that's complicated. There are different interests at play but that's all it needs for those people to work along the same lines - going in the same direction. That would be a very good start."

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