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Wales Domination
This has been a pretty one sided affair in recent years, with Wales winning eight of the last nine meetings across all competitions dating back to the 2012 Six Nations, the latest coming as recently as the World Cup in Oita, with the ‘home nation’ side running out narrow 20-19 victors after second row Sebastian Vahaamahina was sent packing for an elbow on Aaron Wainwright.
In fact, those nine matches have largely come down to fine margins. Six were decided by seven points or fewer, including all the last four seeing fewer than six points, while three of those were decided by a maximum of two points.
Both sides have a new look about them, with the hosts now under the tutelage of Kiwi Wayne Pivac and the French having a complete upheaval of their assets.
Indeed, new head coach Fabien Galthie has been joined by former Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards, while they also announced 19 uncapped players in their provisional Six Nations squad, so we’re inclined to take the previous head-to-head history with a pinch of salt.
A Must Win For The Welsh
This is a must win game for the Welsh who suffered a 24-14 defeat in Ireland to end their hopes of becoming the first side to win back-to-back Grand Slams since the rebranding to the six sided tournament.
In fact, this was the first defeat for Wales in nine Six Nations matches since they last lost at the same ground two years ago.
However, they’ll take confidence in their record at the Principality Stadium, having won 15 of their last 17 matches in this tournament, as only England have been able to down them in 2015 and 2017, as they’ve now won seven on the bounce.
Vakatawa Returns
This France side remains vastly inexperienced and while they showed their quality with the marker they laid down in the opening round against Eddie Jones’ World Cup finalists, they struggled to provide much of the same as they laboured to a home victory over lowly Italy.
Galthie has opted to make just the one change to his side that beat Italy with the injured Vincent Rattez making way for Virimi Vakatawa.
Pivac on the other hand, has made two changes to his starting line-up for the visit of Les Bleus. Gareth Davies is reinstated at half back, while Ross Moriarty deservedly gets a starting birth ahead of Aaron Wainwright in the back row.
France +6 Handicap
Both teams will need to improve from their most recent games if they want to secure victory this Saturday, though it’s understandable that there will be a few teething problems this early on after their respective post-World Cup reshuffles, and we can see this going the distance and being another close encounter.
While we expect the home crowd to get their side over the line, the handicap for the visitors looks the most appealing value in the market, especially with their current momentum.
ROUND TWO HIGHLIGHTS
WALES V FRANCE TEAMS
Wales: 15 Leigh Halfpenny, 14 George North, 13 Nick Tompkins, 12 Hadleigh Parkes, 11 Josh Adams, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Gareth Davies, 8 Taulupe Faletau, 7 Justin Tipuric, 6 Ross Moriarty, 5 Alun Wyn Jones (c), 4 Jake Ball, 3 Dillon Lewis, 2 Ken Owens, 1 Wyn Jones
Replacements: 16 Ryan Elias, 17 Rob Evans, 18 Leon Brown, 19 Will Rowlands, 20 Aaron Wainwright, 21 Tomos Williams, 22 Jarrod Evans, 23 Johnny McNicholl
France: 15 Anthony Bouthier, 14 Teddy Thomas, 13 Virimi Vakatawa, 12 Arthur Vincent, 11 Gael Fickou, 10 Romain Ntamack, 9 Antoine Dupont, 8 Grégory Alldritt, 7 Charles Ollivon (c), 6 François Cros, 5 Paul Willemse, 4 Bernard Le Roux, 3 Mohamed Haouas, 2 Julien Marchand, 1 Cyril Baille
Replacements: 16 Camille Chat, 17 Jean-Baptiste Gros, 18 Demba Bamba, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Dylan Cretin, 21 Baptiste Serin, 22 Matthieu Jalibert, 23 Thomas Ramos
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