French coy on title chances

France captain Lionel Nallet is refusing to ponder a big win against Wales next weekend to retain the Six Nations Championship title, preferring instead to focus on his team's solid victory over Italy in Paris on Sunday.

France captain Lionel Nallet is refusing to ponder a big win against Wales next weekend to retain the Six Nations Championship title, preferring instead to focus on his team's victory over Italy in Paris on Sunday.

Les Bleus kept the tournament alive with a 25-13 victory over the Italians in Paris on Sunday, but will need to see off unbeaten Wales by at least 20 points to claim their third Six Nations crown in succession.

Nallet knows it will be a tough test for his side in the all-or-nothing match at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium next Saturday, but he was just happy to have got back to winning ways after the 24-13 defeat by England a fortnight ago.

“It is clear that it is going to be tricky against Wales, but today we are just happy to have beaten Italy,” said the Castres lock.

“They have shown over the years that they are getting harder and harder to beat.

“So we are happy with the win and also to have recovered from our defeat to England.”

France scored three tries, through Anthony Floch, Yannick Jauzion and Aurélien Rougerie, while recalled scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili kicked ten points.

But they failed to fully put away an Italy side who have always struggled in these Six Nations transalpine clashes.

With France coach Marc Li̬vremont having made nine changes to his starting line-up and still introducing more and more new faces Рfive made their debuts against Italy Рthat was maybe to be expected.

But Lièvremont was happy overall, adding: “We are pleased to have won.

“It is a fortnight after the England defeat, which was an enormous failure for us, so we have waited for this and given a lot of attention to this match.

“We knew it was going to be extremely difficult as they had lost three games and did not want to lose a fourth.

“But we were better in the set-piece, although we missed a lot of line-outs, and we found what we needed to win and create the opportunities to get through their defence.

“We made a few errors, but overall it is positive.”

Lièvremont refused to give anything away about his potential squad selection for next weekend, saying: “We will have to see how certain players recover from the game against Italy before we think about the Wales game.

“We will have to think about whether we make changes. We want to keep the continuity going, but we are looking to create a great exploit in Cardiff.”