France no longer favourites with the bookmakers after Ntamack injury

This is the sorta stuff Galthie was talking about having needed to go through with his premium players (so avoiding it and ruling them out altogether is probably his preferable solution). Hopefully WR comes up with something as Galthie has thrown other less important players to the wolves simply instead.

I clarified this topic in my post but heres a quick copy paste

Training load management is the primary focus in load management among elite rugby teams because training activities are more easily modified when compared to match demands, and training load is reported to account for 84-95% of total physical load in rugby

From WRs Player Welfare section https://www.world.rugby/the-game/player-welfare/medical/player-load/coaches-guidance

Back on the last article I noted that WR is now dedicating a whole section in their six-point business plan to this topic. It also noted that studies indicated 85-90% of workload falls outside of playing. So in respect to your point on the classification of ‘involvements’, needing to include even subs with a low volume of minutes, it actually goes further to the wider group of players that train as if they’re going to be required to start on the weekend. That makes even the 30-35 game borderline pale into insignificance.

No doubt it is one of the main reasons why France has a quota on the number of any one clubs amount of players in their International camps, where they rotate in other clubs players through the week (those not chosen in the 23 on Tues/Wed must be rotated out with players from another club for the remaining weeks prep). The number of ‘invisible’ games against a players season tally or predicted workload suggests the FFRs 25 game limit as more appropriate?

So if we take it at face value that Galthie and the FFR have got it right, only a dozen players from the last 60 international caps should have gone on this tour. More players from the ‘Scotland 23’ than the more recent 23 were eligible.

The only real pertinent question is what do players prefer more, health or money? There are lots of ethical decisions, like for instance whether France could make a market like Australia’s where their biggest rugby codes have yearly broadcast deals of 360 and 225 million euros. They do it by having a 7/8 month season, but ultimately if they don’t want it to change they can just play 11 months in the season instead.