France v Wales winners and losers: ‘Hulking’ Gregory Alldritt and Antoine Dupont star as Romain Ntamack blunder ‘opens door’ to fly-half
France number eight Gregory Alldritt picked up the Player of the Match award.
Following France’s 43-0 win over Wales in the opening game of the 2025 Six Nations, here’s our winners and losers from Friday’s fixture at the Stade de France.
Winners
Antoine Dupont
Played just over a half the game and after a disjointed start he soon settled into his groove and tore Wales to pieces with his quality and high rugby intelligence.
Dupont set up three of France‘s first-half tries and was a genuine threat every time he touched the ball. As one commentator said last night, it is one thing knowing what’s coming from the scrum-half and preparing during the week but an entirely different thing stopping it come game time. Wales had no answer to him.
Gregory Alldritt
Let’s be honest it probably would’ve been Dupont picking up the Player of the Match award had he not been wrapped in cotton wool for most of the second half. However, take nothing away from Alldritt‘s effort as he returned to his peak form with an all-action, hulking performance that resulted in a powerful late try.
Matthieu Jalibert
The watching Bordeaux fly-half is a winner despite not being involved in the matchday 23 as Romain Ntamack‘s red card looks to have flung open the door to him.
Ntamack (more on him later) is set to miss at least next weekend’s fixture against England at Allianz Stadium so it looks like Jalibert is set to be parachuted into the starting line-up at number 10. Thomas Ramos might have stepped up but injuries to France’s other full-back options means it’s Jalibert’s chance to shine.
Wales forward duo
Despite being on the end of a big 43-0 loss there were some positives for Wales to take going forward as they fought gallantly in Paris and the team deserves credit.
Two men though stand out for special praise and they are captain Jac Morgan and lock Dafydd Jenkins. Both emptied the tank up front and Jenkins especially was a standout as he impressed despite only recently returning from injury. A bright future awaits Exeter’s second/back-row and don’t rule out a Lions place.
French wings
No Damian Penaud, no problem. Théo Attissogbe stepped in alongside Louis Bielle-Biarrey and the duo had a field day out wide thanks in no small part to Dupont.
Attissogbe took his chances in the absence of the injured Penaud and showed he’s a Test match player while Bielle-Biarrey is maturing into a wonderful wing talent.
Emmanuel Meafou
Every game we see of Meafou we cannot help but be impressed. The big lock is an incredible carrying outlet and constantly gives Dupont and France front-foot ball.
France have got themselves a gem of a second-row as the massive New Zealand-born, Australian-raised forward gave Wales defence problems all evening on Friday.
Losers
Romain Ntamack
You could see he was heartbroken and frustrated with himself as he went down the tunnel after his late yellow card turned to red, but he can have no complaints.
Some called it a “lazy” tackle and that’s probably the best word to sum it up as he did not drop his height whatsoever before he clattered into Ben Thomas’ head.
The net result is he will miss the Six Nations clash with England and possibly the Ireland fixture which will sting greatly, not just for Ntamack but also Les Bleus.
Owen Watkin
A knee injury ended the Ospreys centre’s night on 27 minutes and it looked serious. One hopes that is not the case but it seems certain his Six Nations is finished.
Unfortunately for Watkin it also wasn’t the best half-hour in Paris as the inside centre made a couple of key errors before injury hit, capping a disappointing night.
England
It wasn’t just France’s clinical performance and the fact that they nilled Wales but also that they were able to rest Dupont for a large chunk of the second period.
Les Bleus also have an extra day’s recovery ahead of next Saturday’s game at Twickenham and with stars like Penaud poised to return it’s bad news for England.
Nick Tompkins
It was a strange selection decision from Warren Gatland to bring Tompkins in from the cold, especially after he’d left him out for the Autumn Nations Series action.
He has always impressed for Saracens but his form for Wales hasn’t quite hit those heights for some time now and Friday was another under-par effort in midfield.
Nolann le Garrec
An opportunity to show the coaches he should be second choice scrum-half behind Dupont but unfortunately his goal-kicking might have left him down in a big way.
Finished with zero from two record off the tee and while his first conversion was by no means a gimme, the second late on was a much more straightforward shot.
It seems likely that Maxime Lucu could take the bench spot next week – that may have been in Fabien Galthie’s mind already – but Le Garrec will rue those efforts.
