It has been 14 years since France beat England at Twickenham in the Six Nations. “A long time,” says Jacques Brunel with a rueful grin. Brunel has not had a lot to smile about lately but he is hoping this latest incarnation of the French team will fix that. The head coach has made 10 changes to the French 23 that blew a 16-0 lead against Wales last week, six of them to the starting XV. The headline news is that he has recalled Mathieu Bastareaud at outside-centre, in a move that is designed to counter the physical threat posed by Manu Tuilagi.
Bastareaud will partner Geoffrey Doumayrou. Wesley Fofana, who started last week, is out injured, and the 19-year-old Romain Ntamack has dropped to the bench. Yoann Huget has been switched to full-back, where he replaces the injured Maxime Médard, and Gaël Fickou comes in on the wing. Up front, the blindside flanker Yacouba Camara is making his first appearance since last year’s Six Nations, the lock Felix Lambey starts instead of Paul Willemse and Demba Bamba replaces the injured Uini Atonio at tighthead prop.
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It is a step up for Bamba, who is only 20 and plays for Brive in the second division. Prop, Brunel admitted, was a problem because “there are so many foreigners in this position in the Top 14” but Bamba “has a little experience even if he’s only played two matches for us; he’s already faced quite a few good players.” Bamba, who was a key part of the team that won the U20 world championship last year, does not seem too fazed. “The English are an opponent like any other,” he said. “It’s up to us to unsettle them, they were able to do it in Ireland, so why shouldn’t we be able to do it to them?”
The centre combination of Bastareaud and Doumayrou has been put together to do just that. They did well together in France’s 22-16 win over England at the Stade de France in last year’s championship, when they lined up against Owen Farrell and Ben Te’o. “I said last week that Mathieu remained an important option for us and this is the right time to use him,” Brunel explained. “We are hoping he’ll have a big impact for the team, because we are looking for a physical presence to counter the power of the English midfield, and particularly Manu Tuilagi.”
While the backline is bulked up, the pack is actually smaller than the one Brunel put out last week, which was one of the heaviest ever fielded in international rugby. Lambey, the 24-year-old lock, played well off the bench and Brunel said he wanted to reward him for that by giving him his first start. Lambey is 6ft 3in and 15st, which, by modern standards, makes him a bit of a lightweight. Brunel explained that there had been a time when he had thought Lambey needed to be bigger, but that he had done so well in the second half against Wales that he was happy to pick one of “the lightest lock forwards in the world”.