While Dublin rocks to the twin highs of St Patrick’s weekend and the build-up to a shot at grand-slam glory against shell-shocked England, Paris may or may not pause its civil unrest to celebrate the returning heroes who rendered the English thus. The pension age is exercising French politicians and protesters at the moment, but their rugby team plays as if retirement is the last of their concerns.
Meanwhile, Wales arrive after their first win of the Six Nations, in round four, against Italy. Bonus-point wins in Rome are not to be sniffed at these days, but rarely has a side claimed one after being so outplayed. Wales have veered between youth and experience this championship, making 25 changes, more than six a match on average, as the veterans give way to the tyros who give way to the veterans.
Alun Wyn Jones, all 157 Wales caps of him, is one of three returning centurions. Wales boast 997 caps in their starting lineup – which is second only to the 1,013 caps fielded by New Zealand for their opener against Argentina at the 2015 World Cup – although the 952 Wales fielded for the opener against Ireland might be deemed relatively more experienced, given there have been four sets of caps handed out since.
The main difference between that team and this, caps-wise, is the replacement at full-back of Liam Williams by Louis Rees-Zammit. The former was injured against Italy, but the latter is playing his way back from an injury of his own and starts at full-back for the third time for Wales.
George North and Dan Biggar return more than 100 caps each to the party. North teams up with Nick Tompkins in the centre to replace the youngsters Joe Hawkins and Mason Grady. Aaron Wainwright is the sixth change to the team that beat Italy. He will line up in the back row alongside Taulupe Faletau, who will become the latest to join Wales’s 100-cap club.
Nothing speaks more clearly of the disparity in confidence between the two teams than the lack of chopping and changing in the French camp. France started this championship as one of the more inexperienced outfits, with only Gaël Fickou boasting more than 50 caps, but they make just the two changes to the side that laid waste to England at Twickenham.
Uini Atonio returns from suspension to assume his customary position at tight-head and join Fickou in the 50-cap club, while Romain Taofifénua replaces the injured Paul Willemse at lock. And why would they tinker unnecessarily? They are the second best team in the world and are not going for a grand slam only because they played the best in Dublin.
Jamie Ritchie believes a strong performance against Italy and a third-place finish behind the top two sides in the world will seal a positive Six Nations campaign for Scotland.
Back-to-back defeats by France, ranked second in the world, and the top-ranked Ireland mean Scotland can no longer claim silverware from a tournament that started with wins over England and Wales. But captain Ritchie feels there is still plenty at stake as they seek to finish third for the first time since 2018.
“I outlined our goal of five good performances and I think we’re at three and a half just now,” he said. “To get it up to four and a half would be good so we’re looking for a strong performance. To secure that third place outright would be a positive.
“We shouldn’t change our application based on the opposition. For us it’s about maintaining the same standards and trying to put out our best performance, which I don’t think we’ve done yet.”
Ritchie believes it would represent a solid building block before the World Cup in the autumn if Scotland – who go into a Six Nations match for the first time since 2019 without either Stuart Hogg or Finn Russell after the two influential backs pulled out with injuries – finish as best of the rest behind the two clear big-hitters. Italy have lost all four of their matches but Ritchie is adamant they will be a dangerous opponent on Saturday.
“They come here with nothing to lose. They’re always a passionate team but there might be a little bit more passion because they enjoy playing against us, they target this game,” he said. PA Media
There is still French hope of a successful defence of their title. All they can do is beat Wales, preferably with a bonus point, and hope the wounds they inflicted to England’s pride last weekend prove more inspiring than deflating. Actually they would have to prove transformative because France need England to overcome Ireland. Les Bleus have four match points to make up on Andy Farrell’s men. If the teams are level, they also need the two results to improve their points difference relative to Ireland’s by 21.
Normally, when so many ifs are involved, a team knows their fate. France have never been above a swing in fortunes themselves after an outlandish result, but it would have to be quite the implosion to offer Wales any hope of escaping the lower reaches of the table.
More realistically, bar the usual platitudes towards focusing only on the next match, Wales’s ambitions stretch little farther than avoiding the wooden spoon. This relies on Scotland beating Italy at home, which should happen but is not the gimme it might have been in years gone by.
At least Wales will know before kick-off what they need to do to achieve that. For France, it will be a case of jouons and see.
That may not prove enough, but, if the country is looking for a reason to cheer, its rugby team is as compelling as any.
