Baptiste Serin was one of the stars of France’s summer tour to Argentina but the scrum-half insists he can’t let his level drop if he wants to feature for Les Bleus in November.
The 22-year-old started both games against the Pumas, helping France to an impressive 27-0 success in Tucuman.
As a result he was included in France’s elite group for the new season alongside Maxime Machenaud and Sébastien Bézy and could feature in the November Tests against Samoa, Australia and New Zealand.
However Serin, who came off the bench in the opening round of Top 14 fixtures on Saturday, expects to come under considerable pressure just to hold onto his place at Bordeaux-Bègles, with Yann Lesgourgues in good form in the win over champions Racing 92.
He explained: “I’ve not concentrated too much on it (his international status), and I have to keep pushing myself.
“The proof is that Yann Lesgourgues had a great game this weekend. I’m going to have to work hard to get a starting role at UBB because there is a lot of competition and if I want to aim higher I have to do well at club level. So my role, it’s not as an international yet and that’s normal.
“It’s difficult, I’m not in form yet. I don’t feel I’m ready because before the 20 minutes this weekend I’d not done any contact work.
“I was less prepared for the collisions because I didn’t have the same preparation as in previous years.
“It will take me a little time, I can tell at training, there are mistakes so I need to work even harder to be ready for the upcoming games.”
