Northampton make three changes while Racing include Finn Russell

FYI though, around english boards a “team” is generally your cored 28/9/30 man group. So your second best player in solo roles like halfback etc is typically part of your A team, and you have to go to 5th and 6th best for a C team.

So what the fun way to do it is simply list all your International quality French players in order, for each position. Sounds like fun eh! (hint:its more fun when you think your country has the greatest depth)

The squad for this France A would be:

Gros-Mauvaka-Tatafu

Flament-Meafou

Cros-Ollivon-Alldritt

Dupont-Ntamack

Moefana-?(all 13s were in NZ) Costes ?

Bielle-Biarrey-Penaud

Ramos

(But if you can take players from the NZ, then Guillard and Barassi or Fickou could be in)

Against the C team:

Erdocio-Bourgarit-Slimani

Auradou-Halagahu

Fischer-Guillard-Brennan

Le Garrec-Hastoy

Fickou-Depoortere

Attissogbe-Villière

Barré

And a B team would be:

Baille-Marchand-Atonio

Cazeaux-Vergé

Jegou-Jelonch-Gazzotti

Lucu-Jalibert

Danty-Frisch

Lebel-Dréan

Buros

———

France A-France C at full fitness: 38-12

France A-France B: 28-17

France B-France C: 32-20

It seems a bit like Toulouse is kind of France A at full power last year, UBB is France B at full power last year and Racing92 is France C at full power this year.

Congratulations! Your mother must be so proud.

Currently, Will and Roigard are the only real danger men in the backline. BB has lost his line breaking abilities. Normally we have the best wingers in the World but we seem to be producing a fairly average crop at the moment.

13 remains a puzzle to solve. Jordie Barrett is showing some signs of finally fulfilling his undeniable potential, but if we are honest, he has not been able to spark the backline outside of him so far since moving to 12. Hopefully we will see that change.

The sooner Faingaʻanuku comes back, the better. I’ve always thought he is the obvious candidate to fill the 13 jersey, but even at wing, he will add some much-needed aggression and power to an otherwise largely utilitarian backline.

“Different body position, understanding where the space was and understanding how we can work as individuals or doubles. It was an area of the game that last 10 meters for us, we just didn’t get it right as well as we should have last night.

“The space was across the field, and it’s not always trying to run over the top of people, so we’ll definitely have some good learnings there.

“As a coach, I thought I needed to prepare them better than what they played around that area of the game, so definitely, a lot of things around body height, where we were on the field, the ability to move to the space and even use our individuals a wee bit differently.