{"id":475297,"date":"2026-02-12T15:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475297\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:00:15","slug":"feleu-retains-france-captaincy-amid-ratier-rebuild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475297\/","title":{"rendered":"Feleu retains France captaincy amid Ratier rebuild"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

France\u2019s new head coach Fran\u00e7ois Ratier has confirmed that Manae Feleu<\/a> will take sole captaincy of the national team after his first training camp.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old lock forward held the position alongside Marine M\u00e9nanger at the 2025 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup<\/a> in England<\/a> under the previous regime.<\/p>\n

For his first training camp since he took the reins from Ga\u00eblle Mignot and David Ortiz, Ratier was clearly keen to look at the next generation. Out of the 38 players that took part in the training camp, 16 were uncapped and a number were still teenagers.<\/p>\n

It was also an opportunity for the squad to move on from the disappointment of their fourth-place finish at the Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup. Not only dismissed by eventual champions, England, in the semi-final, the side also saw Axelle Berthoumieu<\/a> banned for biting and Feleu banned for a dangerous tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we needed to move on, it wasn\u2019t all negative either, but it\u2019s a new cycle so we obviously want to start again with new foundations,\u201d Ratier said in Blagnac.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to open up because we\u2019re starting on a four-year cycle, we\u2019ve calculated that we should see around 60-70 players over this cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere may even be players who are 17 or 18 years old today who will be at the World Cup (in 2029), so we want to broaden as much as possible, obviously there is the Tournament coming up where we will tighten things up, but in the next training camp we will have we will open it up again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Ratier, France<\/a> have installed a serial winner in their head coaching position. During his time with Canada<\/a> he took the North Americans to the 2014 Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup<\/a> final and while coaching Stade Bordelais in \u00c9lite 1 won back-to-back titles.<\/p>\n

Last month Ratier appointed G\u00e9rald Bastide as defence, transition and skills coach, while Florent Wieczorek has been appointed forwards coach.<\/p>\n

Ratier\u2019s tenure as head coach begins in Saturday 11 April when France host Italy<\/a> at the Stade des Alpes in the first round of the 2026 Guinness Women\u2019s Six Nations.<\/p>\n

France Women training squad<\/p>\n

Forwards<\/p>\n

Ylona Avril
Makarita Baleinadogo
Amalia Bazola Allieres
Rose Bernadou
Axelle Berthoumieu
Clo\u00e9 Correa
L\u00e9a Champon
Charlotte Escudero
Isis Espuga
Madoussou Fall Raclot
Manae Feleu
Assia Khalfaoui
Mathilde Lazarko
Tifen Lesieu
Taina Maka
Mailys Mailagi
Ambre Mwayembe
Elsa Peyras
\u00c9lisa Riffonneau
Charlotte Rufas
Sobehian Soqeta
Eva Tougne
Kiara Zago<\/p>\n

Backs<\/p>\n

Carla Arbez
Pauline Barrat
\u00c9milie Boulard
Pauline Bourdon Sansus
Morgane Bourgeois
Ana\u00efs Grando
Joanna Grisez
Marie Ibanez
Chlo\u00e9 Jacquet
L\u00e9a Murie
Lylou Pedussaud
Lina Queyroi
Aubane Rousset
Lina Tuy
Gabrielle Vernier<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France\u2019s new head coach Fran\u00e7ois Ratier has confirmed that Manae Feleu will take sole captaincy of the national…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-475297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475297","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=475297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}