{"id":471614,"date":"2026-03-12T14:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471614\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T14:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T14:31:09","slug":"galthie-hands-out-debut-in-one-of-four-changes-for-le-crunch-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471614\/","title":{"rendered":"Galthie hands out debut in one of four changes for Le Crunch showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

France<\/a> have added heft to their second row by recalling Emmanuel Meafou<\/a> and Thibaud Flament<\/a> for Saturday\u2019s Guinness Six Nations<\/a> clash with England<\/a> in Paris.<\/p>\n

Head coach Fabien Galthie<\/a> has turned to his trusted all-Toulouse<\/a> lock partnership by pairing the duo together for the ninth time, promoting them from the bench roles they performed in the 50-40 defeat by Scotland<\/a> in round four.<\/p>\n

Charles Ollivon moves from the engine room to number eight to accommodate their return, with Galthie\u2019s hand partly forced by suspension and injury.<\/p>\n

Oscar Jegou has been banned for four matches for eye-gouging against Scotland while Anthony Jelonch<\/a> is recovering from a hamstring strain suffered during training this week.<\/p>\n

Temo Matiu makes his debut in the number seven jersey to complete the three personnel changes to the pack.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

France <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

England <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The only adjustment to the backline is at outside centre where Pierre-Louis Barassi<\/a> replaces Nicolas Depoortere<\/a>, who dislocated his shoulder at Murrayfield.<\/p>\n

France top the Six Nations table but are locked in a three-way tussle for the title alongside Ireland<\/a> and Scotland, who clash in Dublin in the opening match of \u2018Super Saturday\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, Les Bleus\u2019 overwhelmingly superior points difference means that a bonus-point victory would almost certainly result in a successful defence of their crown, regardless of events at the Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

France XV
15 Thomas Ramos
14 Th\u00e9o Attissogbe
13 Pierre-Louis Barassi
12 Yoram Moefana
11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey
10 Matthieu Jalibert
9 Antoine Dupont
1 Jean-Baptiste Gros
2 Julien Marchand
3 Dorian Aldegheri
4 Thibaud Flament
5 Emmanuel Meafou
6 Fran\u00e7ois Cros
7 Tevita Matitu
8 Charles Ollivon<\/p>\n

Replacements
16 Peato Mauvaka
17 Rodrigue Neti
18 Demba Bamba
19 Hugo Auradou
20 Micka\u00ebl Guillard
21 Joshua Brennan
22 Baptiste Serin
23 \u00c9milien Gailleton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France have added heft to their second row by recalling Emmanuel Meafou and Thibaud Flament for Saturday\u2019s Guinness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-471614","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\/471614","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=471614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}