{"id":535682,"date":"2026-03-12T14:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T14:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/535682\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T14:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T14:17:08","slug":"ugo-monye-names-best-on-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/535682\/","title":{"rendered":"Ugo Monye names ‘best on the planet’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former England winger Ugo Monye selected his England and France Combined XV when he met up with Planet Rugby, in association with Arthrosamid<\/a>\u00ae, last week.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the easiest of teams to pick, but Monye has justified his selections below:<\/p>\n

Backs<\/p>\n

15 Thomas Ramos: \u201cIf you play fantasy rugby, you have to have him in it. He scores tries, he kicks goals, he makes assists. Stupidly good rugby player.\u201d<\/p>\n

14 Tommy Freeman: \u201cAttissogbe is like green on the scene. He\u2019s keeping out Damian Penaud,<\/a> who is France\u2019s greatest ever try scorer. I think he\u2019s going really well, but I think if you put Tommy Freeman in the French team, he\u2019d score just as many tries.\u201d<\/p>\n

13 Nicolas Depoort\u00e8re: \u201cHe\u2019s so powerful, so big. He reminds me of (Yannick) Jauzion, for those guys who are of a similar age to me \u2013 big unit, used to play at Toulouse \u2013 all the skills, so silky, makes the game look incredibly easy. He\u2019s having a sensational Six Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n

12 Seb Atkinson: \u201cTop leader, top competitor, serious professional.\u201d<\/p>\n

11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey: \u201cHe\u2019s got the best strike rate of any tier one winger.\u201d<\/p>\n

10 Matthieu Jalibert: \u201cI think he\u2019s been one of the best players on the planet this year. European title winner last year. Ntamack being injured has given him an opportunity, but his form hasn\u2019t changed, whether he be the main man at Bordeaux or the main man for France<\/a> and the fact that we\u2019ve been speaking about Jalibert, not so much Dupont, shows the calibre of player he is and just how well he\u2019s playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

9 Antoine Dupont: \u201cDupont over everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

France\u2019s gorgeous jersey to create an unwatchable kit clash against England on Super Saturday<\/a><\/p>\n

Forwards<\/p>\n

8 Anthony Jelonch: \u201cA serious bit of kit.\u201d<\/p>\n

7 Ben Earl: \u201cI\u2019m biased. I\u2019m allowed to be biased, and I don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

6 Fran\u00e7ois Cros: \u201cTom Curry\u2019s been class, but I\u2019ve got to say Fran\u00e7ois Cros.\u201d<\/p>\n

5 Micka\u00ebl Guillard: \u201cHe\u2019s been very, very good. Yeah, full stop. He\u2019s a big old unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

4 Maro Itoje: \u201cI\u2019m always picking Maro, so I don\u2019t care who he\u2019s up against. I\u2019m picking Maro. He\u2019ll go down as one of the true greats of English<\/a> rugby. He\u2019s a legend, an absolute legend. England captain, Lions captain, and a proper decent bloke.\u201d<\/p>\n

3 Dorian Aldegheri: \u201cI think the French pack this year has been very, very good. Aldegheri, robust player, he\u2019s been brilliant in the scrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

2 Julien Marchand: \u201cSet-piece, massive in the scrum, unbelievable over the ball, great around the park.\u201d<\/p>\n

1 Ellis Genge: \u201cI\u2019m sticking with my boy Genge. I think he\u2019s one of the best forward runners in world rugby. Yeah, Ellis Genge at his best, one of the best on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: England team winners and losers: Speedster finally given \u2018proper crack\u2019 while injured star has to \u2018watch on\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England winger Ugo Monye selected his England and France Combined XV when he met up with Planet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,1208,1379,2592,818,1182,44,760,103300,85],"class_list":["post-535682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-england","tag-features","tag-france","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-six-nations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535682","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=535682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}