Watch every second of the 2026 Six Nations live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nFrance vindicate Galthie’s selection policy<\/p>\n
France coach Fabien Galthie provoked plenty of comment by dropping Les Bleus’ record try-scorer Damien Penaud, centre Gael Fickou and No.8 Gregory Alldritt from his initial Six Nations squad.<\/p>\n
Yet such is France’s enviable strength in depth, the trio were barely missed during a commanding 36-14 win over Ireland, with centre Nicolas Depoortere beating seven defenders during the Stade de France encounter.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, man-of-the-match Mickael Guillard, who started at lock, shouldered a significant amount of the ball-carrying workload as outstanding scrum-half Antoine Dupont made his first Test appearance since suffering a severe knee injury against Ireland last March.<\/p>\n
Ford still driving England onto glory<\/p>\n
George Ford turns 33 next month and there are those who question why England coach Steve Borthwick persists with the veteran fly-half this close to the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia when younger alternatives such as Fin Smith and Marcus Smith are available.<\/p>\n
But it was easy to understand Borthwick’s thinking as Ford masterminded a 48-7 hammering of Wales at Twickenham, his sharp pass and precise cross-kick setting up Henry Arundell for the first two of the wing’s three tries.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, Ford will rarely have had an easier ride in his 106 England caps than against an utterly outclassed Wales suffering a 12th consecutive Championship defeat.<\/p>\n
By contrast, this was England’s 12th successive victory in all Tests — their best sequence since Ford featured in a run of 18 wins in a row from 2015-2017.<\/p>\n
England are often accused of arrogance come what may, but Ford has urged the team to embrace their new-found confidence ahead of a potentially awkward second-round clash with Scotland in Edinburgh.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got to definitely use it, it’s such a positive thing, why wouldn’t we?,” he said. “A lot of the time in England we get told to temper it, but let’s use it.”<\/p>\n
Spotlight still on Scotland coach Townsend<\/p>\n
Scotland boss Gregor Townsend only signed a new contract in September that is meant to see him remain in charge until the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n
But if rugby superpower New Zealand can fire a head coach, as they did when dismissing Scott Robertson last month, in sight of the global showpiece, might Scotland yet be tempted to do the same with Townsend?<\/p>\n
The former Scotland playmaker was left with his head in his hands come the final whistle of an 18-15 defeat by Italy in a rain-sodden Rome, the narrow margin flattering the visitors after they were outshone in all departments by an Azzurri side benefitting from coach Gonzalo Quesada’s guidance.<\/p>\n
Townsend, 52, took charge of Scotland nine years ago and, for all the talk of a ‘golden generation’ of players, he has still to end their unwanted record of failing to finish higher than third place since the Five Nations became the Six Nations in 2000.<\/p>\n
Saturday’s reverse at the Stadio Olimpico was yet another example of their inability to overcome adversity following dispiriting losses to New Zealand and Argentina in November.<\/p>\n
But a Calcutta Cup match against England at Murrayfield is the surest way of firing up Scotland.<\/p>\n
“I believe in the players, I believe in what we’re doing,” said Townsend. “It didn’t happen (against Italy) and we’ve got to make sure it happens next week.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning champions France launched their Six Nations title defence with an emphatic win over Ireland, fellow contenders England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,103300,85],"class_list":["post-467690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-six-nations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}