Today marks four days until the start of the 2018 Six Nations! Here's the third edition of my Six Nations Preview Series running up to the start of the tournament.
This Edition - FRANCE!
Hope you enjoy the read!
I don't think any French supporters should have their hopes up for this year's tournament, with former Italy and Bordeaux boss Brunel replacing Guy Novès - their attempts to prise glory into the French hands screams of desperation. The domestic Top 14 French league is a shambles; masses of foreign talent on incredibly high wages and bags of young French talent being isolated from playing contention. Something that France needs to fix, and quickly, otherwise any chance of future Six Nations titles are out of the picture.
France had a reasonably successful year last year managing to beat an improving Scotland, Italy and then controversially beat Wales after 100 minutes in Paris. Only marginally being beaten by England (probably due to fitness) and then being beaten by Ireland in Round 3. France will be very, very lucky to achieve anything with a similar outcome and wins against Scotland and Wales will be a lot tougher - even Italy won't be a walkover and there's always a chance of a French wooden-spoon.
There's not much to talk about strength-wise because Rugby is much more than just having a bunch of good players on the field at one time. France do have some world-class players that they will be able to rely upon, however. Rabah Slimani and Guilhelm Guirado will produce top performances across the tournament, and probably keep them in contention in games for much longer than without. Antoine Dupont massively impressed against New Zealand at scrum-half, and even without the talented Morgan Parra (who's been ruled out of a couple of games), France probably won't notice his absence. Virimi Vakatawa will also be one to watch in the back-line, and rumours are suggesting that he'll be shifting into a Centre channel and probably taking the 13 shirt for most games.
The biggest weakness is Franch Rugby.
There's absolutely no structure to the team, and I wouldn't be surprised if they played very incoherently for the first few matches. Jacques Brunel has only just become the French head coach, and I doubt he's had much time to sort the problems of the French side out. Big names, such as Louis Picamoles, haven't been included and if Brunel knew what his strongest 23 was, I simply would be amazed! It's going to be experiment after experiment, and he could get it right from the off, or he could get it dreadfully wrong.
France have three home games this year, against Ireland on Saturday, Italy in Round 3 (at the Orange Velodrome) and England in Round 4. Home advantage over Ireland and England won't matter in the slightest, but they'll probably give Italy a big smashing. They'll have no chance of going to Murrayfield or Cardiff and grabbing a win (unless it's poorly officiated like last year's Wales clash) - so they'll just grab the one win this year, and slot in 5th.
Feel free to give me your thoughts below!