{"id":422515,"date":"2026-02-12T22:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422515\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T22:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:32:07","slug":"six-nations-2026-wales-to-call-up-hawkins-and-cracknell-to-face-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/422515\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Wales to call up Hawkins and Cracknell to face France"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cracknell was a late call-up for the November series after the loss of Taulupe Faletau to injury.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 31-year-old blind-side or number eight made his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/c0qp9exdk84o\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Test debut off the bench against Argentina<\/a> and then won man of the match in the last-kick win versus Japan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cracknell is in line to join Aaron Wainwright and Alex Mann in the starting back row at the expense of open-side Josh Macleod.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The balance probably wasn&#8217;t right last weekend,&#8221; said former Wales flanker and captain Ellis Jenkins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s making sure we have enough physicality so that we can match France at the contact area, tackle and collision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I like Alex Mann and Josh Macleod in their own right, but I am not sure against England and France whether it&#8217;s a bit under-powered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wales could stick with a split of six forwards and two backs on the bench against the physicality of Les Bleus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tandy&#8217;s side are huge underdogs against a France side that eased past Ireland on opening weekend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wales have lost their past 12 games in the Six Nations, a streak that goes back to the win against Italy in Rome in March 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cracknell was a late call-up for the November series after the loss of Taulupe Faletau to injury. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-422515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}