light blue retro shirt.<\/a> An elaborate show featuring poetry, pyro and Frederic Michalak will precede the match.<\/p>\nNominally it is all to mark 120 years of Le Crunch \u2013 their rivalry with England. But it is difficult to think that the possibility it might also coincide with a Grand Slam bid did not cross the mind of organisers.<\/p>\n
If France lose, the title is probably gone and the party pooped. It would be an unbearable anti-climax for the hosts.<\/p>\n
Add to the fact that they butchered a clutch of chances in last year’s loss at Twickenham and there is plenty to put right for France.<\/p>\n
A heavyweight pack \u2013 featuring 22-stone second row Emmanuel Meafou \u2013 have been picked to plough through England up front, with the lacerating pace of Louis Bielle-Biarrey, who has scored in his past nine Six Nations games, lurking out wide.<\/p>\n
For England, the consequences of defeat are difficult to predict. The title is long since gone, and the possibility that their coach could follow hangs in the air.<\/p>\n
A lukewarm vote of confidence in Borthwick was issued by the Rugby Football Union the day after England’s first defeat by Italy.<\/p>\n
Five words in chief executive Bill Sweeney’s final line summed it up.<\/p>\n
“England fans rightly expect a team that learns and grows through adversity,” he said. “And we’re confident this group will do everything they can to deliver that.”<\/p>\n
No-one is doubting Borthwick and his staff’s diligence and industry but, equally, no-one is staking anything on whether it is still effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But that Murrayfield loss also provides motivation for France. The Stade de France is putting on plenty of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-345759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}