France 6 nations squad

31-man France training squad for Six Nations:

Props: Eddy Ben Arous (Racing Métro), Alexandre Menini (Toulon), Nicolas Mas (Montpellier), Uini Atonio (La Rochelle), Rabah Slimani (Stade Français)

Hookers: Benjamin Kayser (Clermont), Guilhem Guirado (Toulon)

Locks: Alexandre Flanquart (Stade Français), Yoann Maestri (Toulouse), Pascal Papé (Stade Français), Romain Taofifenua (Toulon)

Back rows: Damien Chouly (Clermont), Thierry Dusautoir (Toulouse, captain), Bernard Le Roux (Racing-Métro), Yannick Nyanga (Toulouse), Charles Ollivon (Bayonne), Louis Picamoles (Toulouse)

Half-backs: Rory Kockott (Castres), Sébastien Tillous-Borde (Toulon),Rémi Tales (Castres), Camille Lopez (Clermont)

Centres: Mathieu Bastareaud (Toulon), Wesley Fofana (Clermont), Remi Lamerat (Castres), Alexandre Dumoulin (Racing Métro)

Back threes: Teddy Thomas (Racing Métro), Sofiane Guitoune (Bordeaux-Bègles), Yoann Huget (Toulouse), Noa Nakaitaci (Clermont), Brice Dulin (Racing Métro), Scott Spedding (Bayonne).


http://www.thescore.ie/france-squad-six-nations-1883097-Jan2015/

There's a few new names to most who don't watch the top14

No Parra or Marchenaud, also no Mermoz, Ouedraogo or Medard...!!

Huge player base to chose from despite the quantity of overseas players in the top 14

Is this Kockott's first call up since moving? Will he start?

Always rated him since his Super14 days

He played in the AIs, I think he was capped in the Fiji and Argentina matches, from the bench.

yes Kockott did play in the AIs.

one to watch is nakaitaci who I hope will be on the bench as can cover wing and centre and is quite explosive. otherwise am mildly annoyed by the selection of Tales, bastareaud, Mas and lamerat but one of my new year resolution was to stop commenting too much PSA decisions so I will stop there

whocares wrote:yes Kockott did play in the AIs.

one to watch is nakaitaci who I hope will be on the bench as can cover wing and centre and is quite explosive. otherwise am mildly annoyed by the selection of Tales, bastareaud, Mas and lamerat but one of my new year resolution was to stop commenting too much PSA decisions so I will stop there

Don't worry whocares, we all know that NY resolutions are there to be broken by the end of January.

How do you rate France's chances this year?

maestegmafia wrote:No Parra or Marchenaud, also no Mermoz, Ouedraogo or Medard...!!

Huge player base to chose from despite the quantity of overseas players in the top 14

Or the even more obvious one Gael Fickou. Is he injured? How can they leave him out?

TS : slightly better than last year, maybe we'll get one or two good results/perfomances but with both Ireland and England away, we should end up with at least 2 defeats anyway.

GG: am not sure but have noticed he's not even in Toulouse squad against Bath this weekend.

What happened to Parra? He looked genius a couple of seasons back

He spent half of last season injured and the other half not playing great. Getting slowly back to his best but I think he missed the train/boat as he's probably 4th choice in PSA mind.

Where will Kockott go if Castres are relegated?

Presumably to a French side as he won't want to leave the shop window after so long putting himself in there.

Jeez - France still need a good 10 deperately.

Kockott could joing the Saffer community of Racing as I dont think Pillips will stay much longer. My guess would be to Stade Français as he would have less competition there.

Lopez is not too bad as FH. Plisson is also much more interesting than Tales.

some updates:
both N8s Ollivon and Picamoles are out due to injuries following last weekend games and are respectively replaced by Lauret (flanker) and the relatively unknown Goujon (who plays 8 but mostly 7 for La Rochelle and has only a few T14 games under his belt!). I am starting to think that PSA got jealous of Vern Cotter wild selctions for the Scottish backrow ...

How long are Ollivon and Picamoles out for?

So a small piece of breaded meat replaces an underground pokemon...

profitius wrote:How long are Ollivon and Picamoles out for?

2 weeks is what I read

has gillian galan never threatened to win a place for les bleus?

i have only seen him in 1 full game, against saracens at wembley last year in the group stages, and he was awesome.

yes he was great in that game, unfortunately lacks consistency and fitness for the international level. shame as we lack a real bruiser/ball carrier at 8 now.

some more injury updates :
- Dulin out - Parra in
- Tillous-Bordes could be off next (has some tests today)

french squad goes into training camp as of today so hopefully no more injuries.

Allons-y: https://www.606v2.com/t57403-6n-round-1-france-v-scotland-7-february

Come on then, could someone who actually watches French rugby tell me who Saint-Andre will pull out of the hat for the opener against Scotland??

funnyExiledScot wrote:Come on then, could someone who actually watches French rugby tell me who Saint-Andre will pull out of the hat for the opener against Scotland??

Even PSA won't know until the Toonie Tombola he has apparently borrowed gets to Paris!

funnyExiledScot wrote:Come on then, could someone who actually watches French rugby tell me who Saint-Andre will pull out of the hat for the opener against Scotland??

he will probably start with something similar we saw during the AIs so maybe :

Menini Guirado Mas
Maestri Papé
Dusautoir Chouly Le Roux or Nyanga
Parra (assuming TB is injured) Lopez
Thomas- Fofana - Bastareaud or Dumoulin - Huget
Spedding

subs : Ben Arous - Kayser - Atonio, Flanquart, le Roux or Nyanga, Kockott, Tales, Nakaitaci (whishfull thinking here)

personnaly I would drop the likes of Papé ( french Jim Hamilton, lazy and poor work rate) ,Mas (old glory and hardly last 50 mins, Slimani is better already) , Dusautoir (being a great tackler is not good enough nowadays), Nyanga (past his best), Tales and spedding (put huget there instead)