Wales v France: Five takeaways as hosts fail to cope with ‘French power’ despite the ‘Shaun Edwards-engineered’ defence crumbling
Following France’s 24-45 victory over Wales in the Six Nations clash at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Sunday, here are our five takeaways.
The Top Line
The 2024 Six Nations produced its third crackerjack clash of the weekend as France eventually overpowered Wales in a match in Cardiff that was a lot closer than the final scoreline suggested.
France’s tries came from Gael Fickou (22′), Nolann Le Garrec (30′), Georges-Henri Colombe (65′), Romain Taofifénua (69′) and Maxime Lucu (80′) with Thomas Ramos adding 20 points from the boot, as they overcame the doughty efforts of Wales who saw Rio Dyer (9′), Tomos Williams (25′) and Joe Roberts (43′) cross for some brilliantly created tries but as the game went on so France’s power simply became too much for Wales to deal with and the last quarter saw them crumble out of contention.
You can look for so many reasons for the difference between the two sides, but in simple terms, Wales simply couldn’t cope with the waves of French power at the gainline and breakdown, despite magnificent shifts from Tommy Reffell and Aaron Wainwright, who tried manfully to stem muscular carrying power of the French forwards.
Wales can take a lot of positives from this match in terms of their attack with ball in hand, but unless they find the players who can win the contact battle, they are going to continue to struggle against the top sides in both the Six Nations and elsewhere.
Nolann le Garrec and Thomas Ramos impress
Much has been made of the absence of Antoine Dupont since his Olympic Sevens sojourn, and his sabbatical has coincided with a drop in the form of Lucu (despite his try today) and the absence of both of France’s first-choice fly-halves.
However, the precocious talent of le Garrec has been waiting to be unleashed on the international stage, and the Racing 92 scrum-half orchestrated France’s pack and backline into the positions on the pitch where scoreboard potential weighed heavy on the Welsh mind. In short, the talented nine lived up fully to his billing, putting in a man-of-the-match performance that would have delighted the great Dupont himself and included the moment of the game when a speculative reverse backpass found its way to Ramos to unleash another French attack.
Nolann Le Garrec. Stop that! 🤤 #WALvFRA #GuinnessM6N pic.twitter.com/NGfIIHHpSk
— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) March 10, 2024
At fly-half, Ramos is always going to have you on the edge of your seat, and sometimes, if you’re French, not in a good way. But the Toulouse back, a man that’s spent most of his season filling the boots of Romain Ntamack at club level, simply thrives on the challenge of running at pace with ball in hand and his impact on the match with both boot and with sleight of hand was second only to the impact of le Garrec in a memorable performance by a new combination at the heart of French attack.
France player ratings: Rookie fills Antoine Dupont’s boots as bench blows Wales off the park
Welsh Intellect
There’s no doubt that Wales are in a rebuilding process and are experimenting with both selection and style and whilst there’s a lot of callow youth in their side, there’s few countries in the world that have such an intuitive feel for how to win the fine margins of rugby.
Outgunned in scrum and lacking the sheer pace of the flying French backs it’s testimony to the Welsh intellect on how they maxmised every opportunity that came their way, whether it be in attack or defence.
The work of Reffell on the floor is a given – his India rubber body gets in positions that are simply almost humanly impossible, but alongside him, the work of Wainwright in catch and return and also as a second carrier off the ten in attack is earning the Dragons eight rave reviews. Adam Beard’s massive presence and ability to swim through mauls caused France no end of issues to the point he closed off any thought of using their lineout as an attacking weapon.
However, execution is all, and for all of Wales’ brilliance in moving France around and feeding off scraps; Gareth Davies will rue the attempted clearance that allowed the behemoth frame of Romain Taofifénua to charge down and crash over for the vital try that took France to the luxury of a two-score lead.
Wales might not be getting the results right now, but there’s promise and intellect in every part of their game and with the pace they have in their back three, it’s only a matter of time until those much-needed scoreboard outcomes start to come, provided they can match their opponents in that all-important physical battle.
Wales player ratings: Rio Dyer and Dafydd Jenkins catch the eye in gutting defeat to France
Bench Impact
With a host of seasoned Test players on their bench, some of them regular starters during the 2023 Rugby World Cup, the deciding factor in the last 20 came from the sheer quality and enormous power that came onto the pitch as finishers.
To note that tries came from three of those players, Georges-Henri Colombe, Taofifenua and Lucu showed just how much ability France were able to unload and given Wales were on their straps holding on around the gainline battle, the extra tonnage that came on simply overwhelmed the hosts in the last quarter, once again emphasising that rugby is a 23-man game.
For Wales, the opposite was true, with the exception of Dillon Lewis – who really managed to once again stabilise the tighthead side of his scrum – but with Gareth Davies’ error in clearance and Alex Mann unable to get into the game, any chance that the hosts had of clawing their way back into the match fell apart due to the sheer difference in quality of both benches.
Defence Crumbles
France’s Shaun Edwards-engineered defence appears to have gone from heroic to zeroic in a relatively short space of time. For the fourth time this season, a line once thought of as near impregnable struggled to cope with Wales’ ability to take the ball deep into that defence and open gaps.
Firstly, Julien Marchand hit a ruck so hard he doglegged his own supporting pillars, leaving Rio Dyer with a simple one-on-one with Francois Cros to go flying through the middle of the French scramble. Some may argue this was a forgivable error born out of ruck aggression, but others might suggest it was a palpable failure to react to the detail in front of them.
Then Fickou and Depoortere, a new centre combination, were moved out of position to allow Owen Watkin to sell a wonderful dummy to send Tomos Williams scooting down the middle of the French defence once more. It was simple stuff from Wales, wonderfully executed, but on the flip side, the simple stuff that France should have executed well, lacked detail, focus and concentration.
The problems are simple; alignment, rush speed and concentration as a unit. There’s no doubt Les Bleus have immense firepower in attack but it’s the detail in their defence that’s causing them issue after issue in 2024 and until they work out how to shore up that midfield they will remain a shadow of the team we saw in 2022 and 2023.