Bad news for Scotland if this is the case
It’s a horrible idea for loads of reasons, destroying SH rugby is one of them. Without the SA rivalry I could see NZ rugby decline precipitously. Also seriously damaging to the WC. None of which means it won’t happen, the more naked capitalism like CVC get involved in the sport the more this sort of cannibalism becomes inevitable. ABs will only have themselves to blame.
The French have dropped Penaud. Which is baffling.
Despite the supreme talent they have, there is a bit of a "wheels about to come off" atmosphere around them at the moment.
they didnt "drop" him
hes injured
Interesting, and makes a lot more sense.
There was an article on The Guardian earlier that has since been taken down without trace.
Looks like your sources are better than theirs.
Not sure which is accurate but Rugbyrama is reporting it as being dropped for his attitude in the England game, and that he could be released to play for Bordeaux this weekend;
6 Nations 2025 – Sans Damian Penaud ni Matthieu Jalibert, vers un retour d’Anthony Jelonch… La composition probable de la France face à l’Italie - rugbyrama.fr
Also that Jalibert will be replaced at 10 by Ramos.
Planet Rugby are saying a similar thing
Additionally, the France boss has ruthlessly cut winger Damian Penaud who scored and assisted a try in the defeat to England but also missed five of his seven attempted tackles. He will reportedly be replaced by Théo Attissogbe with Louis Bielle-Biarrey retained on the other wing.
my bad.
i cant actually find now where i saw the injury mentioned??, it was reported as a recurrence of the toe injury that kept him out of the first game.
article seems to be gone now?
Strikes me that the French are panicking. Where have we seen this before.
Hopefully the French resort to type, lose interest in the competition and develop poor away form.
Fair enough, I still disagree but it might be down to just not liking him at all so ill admit a bias.
However I think what epitomises my dislike of him as a person to me is his constant lies about himself which he showed for the whole world to see during the 2023 strike issues. He always claims he puts the players and their families first and yet when the players were fighting for their livelihoods and their families he refused to back them. I just watched the guardian interview there and the first thing he says is he always tried to put the players first and that's simply a lie, gatland put gatland first, always.
2011 RWC
I can't be the only one who finds the outpouring of "respect" for Wales from some Ireland fans nauseating. They wrecked their own domestic game through sheer incompetence and on occasion worse than that. That has come through to the national side.
They don't deserve any respect at the moment and should be put away with ease on Saturday by a far better team.
It's not "arrogant" to say so and the only scandal would be Ireland not winning by a 35+ point margin.
France will be an actual game of rugby.
Prediction: Wales 5 - Ire 55
Scotland are 3/1 or 5/2 depending on where you look this weekend. I think that's worth a punt. Not sure how this will go. If England have taken any heed of how we beat the scots theey should win this one.
Ireland are unbackable really and should win by a margin. Wales having a 10 12 13 at 10 12 13 will help them but I expect us to do a number on them up front in the first half and open up in second half. Our bench will add serious impetus.
I think france will wear Italy down but it will be a decent game.
France team is out. Penaud is indeed dropped and they've gone 7-1 on the bench.
15. Léo Barré ; 14. Théo Attissogbe, 13. Pierre-Louis Barassi, 12. Yoram Moefana, 11. Louis Bielle-Biarrey : 10. Thomas Ramos, 9. Antoine Dupont (cap.) ; 7. Paul Boudehent, 8. Gregory Alldritt, 6. François Cros ; 5. Mickaël Guillard, 4. Thibaud Flament ; 3. Uini Atonio, 2. Peato Mauvaka, 1. Jean-Baptiste Gros
Remplaçants : 16. Julien Marchand, 17. Cyril Baille, 18. Dorian Aldegheri, 19. Romain Taofifenua, 20. Alexandre Roumat, 21. Oscar Jegou, 22. Anthony Jelonch, 23. Maxime Lucu
If France don't put up a big score you can expect lots of calls for Galthie's head. You don't drop a legend like Penaud and get away with a bad performance. A win isn't good enough after losing to England.
What did you make of that then?
Superb early Try from the Scots
Offload from VDM was forward
Looked dodgy in the replay for sure. Very poor miss by Russell too
Come on Scotland, win this, so we can stop hearing people whine about the bonus points gifted to England.
VDM just loves playing England. Cracking player.
Get rid of Russel, should have gotten that conversion. Or is it only Irish out halves that need to be perfect? /Sarcasm
I didn’t see any angle to show a grounding but the ref was there so assume he clearly seen it
russel has good defense, good attacking threat ball in hand. i think he will be held on to for a while.
Great try again by Scotland after 10 mins of nothing going on
Kinghorn calamity
Lawrence lucky there with the knock on call seemed to come in from the side but also had the Scottish player round the neck neck roll style
Blair "throw it anywhere" kinghorn
Scotland should be 10 pts more ahead. They must wonder how they can't play against us at all but no problems with England.
England fairly listless. Another example that every team country can cause serious trouble for Ireland and France on their day and be pretty abject on others.
