Why has Damian Penaud been axed from France Six Nations squad?
, The Times
Fabien Galthié’s France is beginning to resemble a prestige TV series in which you never know which actor will be killed off next. Gaël Fickou, in his 14th season on the show, with 98 caps? Grégory Alldritt, the long-time lieutenant and chum of the main character Antoine Dupont? Damian Penaud, two months after he became his country’s record tryscorer?
The head coach has bid them adieu from his 42-man Six Nations squad. Galthié introduced Chekhov’s gun in the autumn, dropping Alldritt from the team against the Springboks, but then made him captain for the next two matches while Dupont continued rehabilitating. When Alldritt was absent, Fickou was the man in charge.
Despite their falls from skipper to skipped over, Penaud’s absence will cause most jaws to fall. It wasn’t quite writing on the wall — at most a doodle in a notepad — but the decision to drop Penaud in last year’s Six Nations, casting him as scapegoat (with Matthieu Jalibert) for the defeat by England at Twickenham, showed that the Bordeaux Bègles wing was not sacrosanct.
Despite being France’s record tryscorer, Penaud has been cast out by Galthié
HANNAH PETERS/GETTY IMAGES
In the two games before the 26-25 defeat away to England, the only blemish in a Six Nations championship won by France, Penaud had scored nine tries for his club, and ended the season with a brace in the Champions Cup final win over Northampton Saints. A haul of 27 tries in 26 matches added to 28 in 31 the previous season, confirming Penaud as the world’s most effective headless chicken. He has admitted that he needs to improve on defence, an aspect of the game that doesn’t motivate him.
“We have set times to go out for warm-ups before matches,” Nans Ducuing, a former club-mate, told Le Parisien in September. “We’re changed, we’re warmed up, and he’s playing chess on his phone, Birkenstocks on his feet. He doesn’t care, he doesn’t know a single tactic. At training, he’s there but not really there, he sends you passes out of bounds, he just laughs… for team life, it’s great, but for the coaches, you never know if he’s fully present or not. But when he steps on to the pitch, he transcends himself. He’s a genius.”
After a long wait, two tries against South Africa in November took Penaud beyond Serge Blanco’s longstanding national record of 38. Using the crude, scoreboard-journalism measure of tries accrued, Penaud’s returns have dropped off (eight in 16 this season would be fine for most wings).
Both of Pollock’s tries against Bordeaux were scored in areas for which Penaud was defensively responsible
ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The vision of Henry Pollock scoring a chip-and-chase past him at Stade Chaban-Delmas earlier this month won’t have helped his case, in opposition to his effervescent chaos in attack. There was even a sense in Bordeaux’s Champions Cup win against Northampton Saints that Penaud didn’t want to score, passing infield unsuccessfully rather than go for the line with a forlorn Pollock in pursuit, and on another occasion switching with Cameron Woki to give the flanker a try, rather than cross with ease.
The precociously talented Bielle-Biarrey, left, is already a prolific tryscorer, and already has 20 tries in 22 international appearances
JEAN CATUFFE/DPPI/SHUTTERSTOCK
The recession is pronounced compared with the continued brilliance of Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Penaud’s flank counterpart registered a hat-trick against Bristol Bears at Ashton Gate on Sunday, extending his season’s work to 18 tries in 17 games (after 33 in 30 in 2024-25). At 22 years old, he is already halfway towards Penaud’s France record.
An even younger talent, the 21-year-old Théo Attissogbe, recently returned after a four-month absence, starting at full back and wing for Pau this month. Had Attissogbe been fit in the autumn, Penaud might have still been trapped level with Blanco, such is the esteem in which the younger man is held internationally.
At 29 years old, it is too early to move on from Penaud. It is also too early to rule out Fickou from the Six Nations story, a tournament he first graced in 2013 as an 18-year-old, but his wisdom and club form have not been enough to hold back the advance of a string of exciting threequarters for the 2027 World Cup.
At Racing 92, who are 11th in the Top 14, Fickou shifted to the wing in his past two league outings. He formed a grand slam-winning combination with Jonathan Danty in 2022, but it must now be time for Yoram Moefana and Nicolas Depoortère to take their Bordeaux form into the French midfield. Kalvin Gourgues, the one-cap 20-year-old centre of Toulouse, is hugely promising too and can cover fly half and full back. Add to that two other members of the Pau nursery — Fabien Brau-Boirie, the 20-year-old centre, and Grégoire Arfeuil, the 21-year-old wing — and Noah Nene, the 21-year-old inside centre of Stade Français.
In the half backs, the debate around Jalibert and Romain Ntamack is moot for now, because the latter is set to miss the opening game due to a kidney injury. Dupont’s three leading deputies at scrum half — Maxime Lucu, Nolann Le Garrec and Baptiste Jauneau — are injured, opening the door for the return of Baptiste Serin, whose last cap came on the summer tour of 2024, and Thibault Daubagna.
Read more Six Nations build-up
Up front, Mickaël Guillard wore No8 ahead of Alldritt against the Springboks, having impressed in New Zealand last summer. Injury ended his autumn early but he has returned for Lyon, in his usual spot of second row. Anthony Jelonch is in the running for the back of the pack, the uncapped Temo Matiu is in, and Charles Ollivon and Woki have worn No8 for their clubs this season, though most of Woki’s 17 appearances for Bordeaux out of a possible 18 have come at No7. François Cros is a welcome return in the No6 jersey, leaving Paul Boudehent as another candidate for No7.
Rumours over the squad show how the strength of France’s league system adds to an already formidable talent pool. Two players born in Australia, qualified via the five-year residency rule, are up for consideration: Tom Staniforth, the former Australia Under-20 lock who joined Castres in November 2020; and Malachi Hawkes, who joined Toulouse as a teenager and has been playing at tight-head prop for Provence in Pro D2. In a rare display of front-row versatility, Hawkes has also made two substitute appearances for his parent club in the Top 14 as a hooker. Staniforth is in, but Hawkes is not.
France squad for 2026 Six NationsForwards: D Aldegheri, U Atonio, H Auradou, C Baille, P Boudehent, F Cros, A Fischer, T Flament, J-B Gros, M Guillard, O Jegou, A Jelohnch, M Lamothe, J Marchand, T Matiu, P Mauvaka, E Meafou, R Montagne, R Neti, C Ollivon, D Priso, T Staniforth, T Tatafu, C WokiBacks: G Arfeuil, T Attissogbe, L Bielle-Biarrey, F Brau-Boirie, R Buros, T Daubagna, N Depoortère, G drean, A Dupont, K Gourgues, A Grandidier Nkanang, M Jalibert, Y Moefana, N Nene, T Ramos, B Serin, U Seunes.