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3 hot takes as Fabien Galthie names France team to visit Ireland
By Liam Heagney
When you are in charge of a team that has won 14 matches on the bounce, panic isn’t the sensible reaction following a single underwhelming performance. So it has proved with France, Fabien Galthie naming a Guinness Six Nations XV to play Ireland this Saturday in Dublin that shows zero changes despite the lacklustre win over Italy in Rome last Sunday. Here are three RugbyPass hot takes on the selection announced by the French on Thursday:
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Keeping the XV faith
France boss Galthie could have thrown his toys out of the pram following last Sunday’s struggle at the Stadio Olimpico, but dropping players due to a single unimpressive display would have only dented the morale and unsettled a settled squad.
Having strutted through the 2022 calendar with a swagger, these first-choice France players have plenty of credit in the bank and Galthie going nuclear would have been the wrong reaction. Italy first-up always had the potential to be a tricky assignment as it is when the low-achieving Azzurri are traditionally at their best in the championship.
It was that same pattern again and an arm-wrestle encounter ended with the Italians trying to maul their way to the line in the round one game’s final play to claw back the five-point deficit.
With the dust now settled, rather than dwell on this negative of nearly getting ambushed, France will have instead acknowledged that they still came away with a four-try bonus point win and having plenty to work on before they take on Ireland will have been viewed as the perfect scenario for Galthie to better get his message across.
Beefing up the cavalry
The only two selection changes made by Galthie were on his bench where the inexperienced duo of Thomas Lavault and Nolann Le Garrec, who were both unused last Sunday by France, have been replaced by the more rough and ready forward Francois Cros and scrum-half Baptiste Couilloud.
That is good housekeeping given the expected 80-minute ordeal on the cards in Dublin. Lavault had only played twice at Test level off the bench while Le Garrec was uncapped. Now, the French can call on Cros, the back-rower who started four of last year’s Grand Slam matches and was a try-scorer in the title-clinching win versus England.
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Couilloud is also a more experienced option than the young Le Garrec, as he had started in four of his 11 Test match appearances. All in all, this is an improved French 23 compared to Rome.
Not paying the penalty
What bugged the French performance in Rome was the high number of penalties they conceded. Referee Matthew Carley whistled them for 18 concessions, padding it out with a yellow card sanction as well.
Back-rower Charles Ollivon was the biggest culprit, getting penalised on four occasions and sin-binned, with lock Paul Willemse giving up three more penalties along with second row sub Romain Taofifenua, who was also accountable for three infringements.
You can be assured the post-game forwards meeting didn’t overlook those damaging individual numbers but the one thing that would have been in their favour was the fact that high penalty counts are rather typical in round one of the championship as it is when teams aren’t fully up to speed with what the officials want.
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Look at Ireland: they gave up 13 penalties in Cardiff so the French weren’t the only team to heavily fall foul of the opening weekend refereeing.
France (vs Ireland, Saturday – 2:15pm): T Ramos (Toulouse); D Penaud (Clermont), G Fickou (Racing 92), Y Moefana (Bordeaux), E Dumortier (Lyon); R Ntamack (Toulouse), A Dupont (Toulouse, capt); C Baille (Toulouse), J Marchand (Toulouse), U Atonio (La Rochelle), T Flament (Toulouse), P Willemse (Montpellier), A Jelonch (Toulouse), C Ollivon (Toulon), G Alldritt (La Rochelle). Reps: G Barlot (Castres), R Wardi (La Rochelle), S Falatea (Bordeaux), R Taofifenua (Lyon), F Cros (Toulouse), S Macalou (Stade Francais), B Couilloud (Lyon), M Jalibert (Bordeaux).
