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It’s no surprise to see the current disparity in price between these two teams. Italy managed to finish second-from-bottom in their Group B at Autumn Nations Cup at the end of last year, but that was because Covid forced Fiji to forfeit each of their matches.
By contrast, France sailed into the final even with some conflict between their domestic clubs and the French federation.
Fabien Galthie continues to grow into this role alongside the defensive tutelage of Shaun Edwards, and together they are starting to build something special. You only have to look at their record since they took over to see they mean business, going W7-D1-L1 over 80 minutes.
That sole defeat came at Murrayfield following a first-half red card to prop Mohamed Haouas, while the draw was against England in the Autumn Nations Cup final when fielding a second-string side due to limitations on the number of international games their players were allowed to play.
The French won’t have any restrictions on their squad this time around though, and that spells danger for the Italians. They’ll be without Romain Ntamack for the start of the competition, although that’ll hardly hinder them with Matthieu Jalibert filling in.
The fly-half has been in exceptional form this season for his club, while he has proven his talent on the international stage already with his performance in that recent final against England at Twickenham back in December.
France -24 Point Handicap
The Azzurri will be looking to end their 27-game losing run in this tournament. They have been left behind by the other five nations by quite some margin now and considering they’ve only once come within nine points of any other side since the start of 2017 in this tournament, we doubt that’s going to change.
Moreover, against tier one nations, they’ve now lost seven of their last 11 such matches by at least 28 points dating back to August 2019, including their most recent meeting with Les Bleus in November (36-5).
Two of those matches that Italy managed to keep within that margin came against the weakest side they faced over that period in Scotland, which if we exclude, means 78% of their such matches were defeats by at least 28 points. Furthermore, even Wayne Pivac’s struggling Welsh side managed to beat them by 20 points.
Including France’s 47-19 World Cup warm-up victory over the Italians back at the end of August 2019, they’ve won 11 of their 14 matches.
They beat competitive sides Argentina, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (twice) over that period, and they look well priced to put the sword to this below par Italy side.
France -24 Point Handicap At 5/4
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ODDS ARE CORRECT AS OF 03/02/2020 HOWEVER ARE SUBJECT TO FLUCTUATIONS
