Depleted and Dupont-less, can France recover after World Cup heartache?

“We would be kidding ourselves not to speak about it,” William Servat admitted. France’s forwards coach was first up to face the press as Six Nations preparations began last week and, inevitably, he was soon asked about the World Cup quarter-final defeat by South Africa and how the team would respond.

Three and a half months on, the players have now come to terms with the agonising early exit on home soil, Servat said. “We have to make use of this frustration as a way to prepare for the Ireland game” the former hooker added, having debriefed the squad on their return to the Marcoussis training centre for the Six Nations.

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At the start of this week, Thomas Ramos highlighted that returning to action with a potential title-decider on Friday against Andy Farrell’s side means the team won’t have time to “dither”. The versatile full-back, who was recently promoted by Fabien Galthié to the six-player “leaders’ group”, is keen to move on as quickly as possible: “If we beat Ireland and we have a good tournament, maybe people will talk less about the World Cup.”

Facing a similarly revanchist Ireland side is, however, hardly the most straightforward beginning to the second instalment of the Galthié era though. The task is made all the more daunting by the long-term absence of Antoine Dupont.

With the scrum-half gearing up to play at the Olympics, the head coach has been left without his talismanic captain and chief orchestrator. Although he has insisted that Dupont’s sabbatical was planned well in advance, the decision will have nonetheless left Galthié short-handed at a crucial time in his reign.

No single French player can replicate the influence that the 2021 World Player of the Year has accrued, but several will occupy the spotlight in his absence. Damian Penaud is closing in on Serge Blanco’s record of 38 tries for Les Bleus. An in-form Matthieu Jalibert will be playing his first full Six Nations as starting fly-half since 2021, in Romain Ntamack’s absence as he continues recovery from the injury that kept him out of the World Cup. Gaël Fickou will have a point to prove after a disappointing tournament. Louis Bielle-Biarrey, who burst on to the scene with four tries last autumn, will hope to consolidate his spot on the wing.

Dupont’s positional replacement will be Maxime Lucu, backed up by Racing 92’s Nolann Le Garrec. The Basque scrum-half was an obvious choice – he deputised impressively at the World Cup for the matches Dupont missed through his cheek injury and has been central to Bordeaux’s success this season. His understanding with his club teammate Jalibert will be a key asset to France’s grand slam hopes; “we’re like an old couple, only without the monotony!”, he told Midi Olympique last week.

More surprising, though, was the choice of Grégory Alldritt as stand-in captain – the intuitive choice would have been Charles Ollivon, who was given the armband when Galthié first took charge four years ago.

The 26-year-old Alldritt’s Scottish roots played a part in the decision. “He understands Anglo-Saxon mentalities and speaks the language,” the head coach pointed out, adding that the La Rochelle captain is also more likely to be a part of the squad for the 2027 World Cup, given he is four years younger than Ollivon.

Alldritt had notably taken a two-month break in the wake of the World Cup, to recover both mentally and physically from a trying schedule. On his return to action, the back row has picked up where he left off with Les Maritimes. As France’s new director of performance, Nicolas Jeanjean, pointed out last week, Alldritt’s extended break is a first for modern French rugby – “I think he and his club have been precursors for a kind of recovery that we’ll be seeing more of in the future.”

Dupont isn’t the only notable absentee who France have to replace – all of Ntamack, Thibaud Flament, Melvyn Jaminet and Emmanuel Meafou are sidelined for the start of the tournament, while Anthony Jelonch faces another long-term layoff after his second cruciate ligament injury in the space of a year.

Despite key absences, the post-World Cup turnover has not been as drastic as initially predicted – the veteran forwards Uini Atonio and Romain Taofifenua have even gone back on their decisions to call time on their France careers. Nearly a third of the players who were called up this week are over 30, a stark contrast to Galthié’s early squads. Most will have been through the “shared experience”, as new coach Laurent Sempéré, put it, of the defeat to South Africa.

Galthié and Servat have been keen to stress a sense of “continuity” in the overall project, even if new members of staff have come on board – including two “mental coaches” who come in to speak to the players at the start of the week. For Sempéré, who takes charge of the forwards alongside Servat, it’s important to look at the bigger picture: “We shouldn’t disconnect the World Cup from the four years that came before.”

Initially, the Bordeaux centre Nicolas Depoortère was the only member of last summer’s U20 World Cup-winning squad to graduate to the senior squad for this Six Nations championship. Last Thursday’s session then saw a group of five “high-potential” players called up for the day, among whom was the latest Tuilagi – Perpignan’s Posolo. The daylong call-ups, part of the agreement between the FFR and Top 14 over player releases, are the chance for the new generation to claim their spots in future squads.

With questions over his eligibility now ostensibly cleared up, Tuilagi did exactly that at last week’s session, which was attended by his father, Henry, the former Samoa international. Posolo, the second-row sensation, has since been included in the wider squad that will prepare for the Ireland game this week at Marcoussis.

Les Bleus will nevertheless attack Friday’s match in Marseille with a lineup of relative veterans – now is not quite the time to throw the new faces into the deep end. Depleted and Dupont-less, the approach for France will be to soldier on, in the hope that the disaster in October did not stunt the momentum that had built up in the previous four years.

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