Not even Jonny Wilkinson started a championship match at fly-half while still a teenager. Few players ever have, and almost as few people will ever have heard of them, so long ago did they do it. Only Neil Jenkins, for Wales in 1991, has managed it since one Billy McCombe, for Ireland in 1968. Exactly.
Ireland’s CJ Stander wary of France debutant Matthieu Jalibert
In Paris on Saturday, though, Matthieu Jalibert will strut out in the No 10 shirt of France, aged 19 years and 89 days. Strut is the word. The Bordeaux Bègles imp may weigh a little over 12st, but with the arrogance of a prince he has already carved up enough men in his first season in the Top14 to make his extraordinary selection by Jacques Brunel, France’s new coach, feel like a perfectly natural opening gambit.
There will be sceptics aplenty – and rightly so – but in an era when we have come to expect a paucity of competence from the French, let alone of the elan for which they were once renowned, let us at least relish this strange frisson at the thought of watching them play. The impression has settled for some time of a French house in chaos. While this selection might not represent a restitution of order, it does bring out more of the positive elements of flying by the seat of one’s pants.
Brunel has resisted the temptation to throw in another youngster of delicious potential, the fearsomely athletic flanker Sekou Macalou, but the first caps don’t end with Jalibert’s. Geoffrey Palis, the 26-year-old Castres full-back, will also start, while there are a further four potential debutants on the bench. Arthur Iturria, in the engine room, has just the one cap.
The contrast is stark with Ireland, whose squad boasts more than three times the number of caps France’s does. Rory Best has only five fewer than the entire France front row, which contains comfortably their two most experienced players, captain Guilhem Guirado and the mighty Rabah Slimani, whose scrummaging will probably represent France’s biggest threat, for all the dash of Jalibert and his hopefully carefree mates.
Jalibert teams up at half-back with France’s other concession to experience, Maxime Machenaud, all 31 caps of him. The Racing 92 scrum-half is a petit general in the finest tradition and will take on goal-kicking responsibilities, not to mention those of chaperoning his young consort outside.
Opposite them will be just about the most established pairing in the championship, Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton. Their composure is such that Ireland’s status as favourites for this match is strengthening, with most bookies giving France a six-point head start, some even seven. Which is something, considering Ireland have won only three times in Paris in the past 66 years.
There is not much arguing with it, though, even if there are actually more Ireland players making their Six Nations debut than France – Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale and James Ryan versus France’s two new caps.
All three of Ireland’s championship debutants are capped. Aki, the punchy New Zealand-born centre, is hardly a rookie, the delay in his debut attributable to his recent qualification for Ireland through residency. Stockdale, meanwhile, could set this championship alight, having torn defences apart in Ulster colours, then done much the same in Ireland’s this autumn. Only Ryan’s selection could be considered surprising. He displaces Devin Toner.
There is a solid look to Ireland, a completely unknown one to France. All eyes will be on the most unknown of the lot. This could be the beginning of a long career for Jalibert, or he might demonstrate why teenage fly-halves are so rare in championship rugby. Either way, it will not be boring.