Michtymauler says...

Well, following the earlier match, that was boring and painful! True, Wales ground out the win.. the match certainly ground me down! Great try at the end though and well taken by a big lad in such a small area to manoeuvre..

I did kind of like it when the Taffs were on a losing streak.. Not because they were getting beat however as I think they've a fantastic back line. No it's just that now the welsh fans have crawled out of the woodwork and ridiculously shouting about how fab they are after beating one of the worst French teams I've ever seen.. Two weeks in a row!!!

This is a very open Six nations.. whichis a good thing.. It's going to be very interesting in two weeks time...

Posted 21:20 09th February 2013

jamesliveinhope says...

@dannyboy agreed standard has fallen dramatically BUT only one of the teams playing today was a winner last week and, despite their result, Italy probably played the most structured and coherent game of rugby .

To be fair, scrummaging on a big green beach towel prevented either side gaining any sort of attacking platform from the set piece but, how did France put so many passes down in that final 20? Jonathan Davies made the comment that both sides were playing not to lose - looked more to me that they were both playing not to win even the North try looked like an attempted touch find gone wrong.

Posted 21:17 09th February 2013

new_j4a says...

I am with you melkdave. I will put money on France to beat either Irel

Posted 21:11 09th February 2013

KiwiRooster says...

Saint-André is trapped in his own certitude. With Fall out on injury, he is now left with no credible options at the back and that is how we will end up with Trinh-Duc at fullback...

France can already forget about this year's 6 Nations and Saint-André has lost valuable time and an even more valuable opportunity to make any impression.

To salvage this tournament, his team will have to defeat England in Twickenham and I cannot see that happening without switching a few players at the very least:

If Saint-André was to stop his pointless experimentations, we could well see what is in my view the most exciting pair of centres in Europe: Fofana-Bastareaud. There is no better combination of speed and raw power, no better defense as well. France will thouroughly need it against England

Saint-André current undoing is his lack of choice from the bench. There are no wingers left. Should Benjamin Fall be out of the Tournament, Saint-André would have to bring someone else from his last list: possibly an out of form Médard (the only utility player), an unexperienced Bonneval or a specialist fullback in Buttin. Palisson (another good utility player) was not on his list, neither was the excellent Marvin O'Connor (specialist winger) and that was certainly Saint-André's biggest failure to ignite.

So in the current state, it seems Saint-André has no choice but to leave Fofana on the wing, which pretty much makes that 6N tournament a pointless act for France after such good november test matches.

This means the French "genius" of a coach will certainly have to do his best with:

Fofana (14) Fritz (12) Bastareaud (13) Fall (11)

Huget (15)

or if Fall turns out to be out of the tournament:

Fofana (14) Fritz (12) Bastareaud (13) Huget (11)

Trinh-Duc (15)

In this current shape: expect a very long and painful encounter with England. France will be lucky to escape with a few limbs.

Posted 20:34 09th February 2013

Lucasrg says...

Ulala...thanks mother earth I'm not Franch today. !

Posted 20:23 09th February 2013

ArmchairGeneral says...

France are supposed to be unpredictable because they try things and some times they fail spectacularly and sometimes the come off fantastically. I get fed up with people saying this is so French. Admittedly sometimes they just don't show up for away games but really this is not typically French. It's bad, really bad, but not typical old France. The problem is they look like... Bad England not typical French.

Posted 20:03 09th February 2013

Kent says...

Welshy mate - totally agree with you. Great thing for me was that Wales were able to slug it out. I thought Ian Evans had his best game for Wales

Posted 19:45 09th February 2013

sirtidychris says...

Wow that was like watching england 2004-2010 play, terrible boring rugby and what the heck was going on with that pitch ?? Some big changes needed Trinh-Duc at 10, parra at 9 and fofana at 13. Well done wales not sure either team deserved to win this but france wanted it less, will need to up the intensity to win another game though.

Posted 19:45 09th February 2013

PontySurrey says...

Sir Robert Howley?

Posted 19:39 09th February 2013

Spartacus says...

This Wales team is worse than the Italy that France lost to last week. They are getting worse! Sack PSA today and get in Mallet/Cotter/anyone with a brain.

A lot of good individual performances from the players, but the overall set up and selections are wrong.

Posted 19:37 09th February 2013