Shooting for the stars: young guns are lighting up this year’s Six Nations

There is still one final round of the 2024 Six Nations remaining but a striking trend is already apparent. Look across all the teams and a new wave of impressive young talent is announcing itself. While there will always be a place for cauliflower-eared experience at the highest level, it is rare for as many fresh faces to be making such a concerted impact on the grand old tournament.

Front and centre for France in Cardiff on Sunday was the 21-year-old l’homme du match Nolann Le Garrec, whose outrageous reverse Hail Mary long pass has rightly been delighting social media users from beyond rugby’s traditional audiences. Then there is Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, also 21, who was outstanding on his first start for England having missed training the week before to sit a medical exam. If his bedside manner is anything like his attacking instinct, the future of the National Health Service is in safe hands.

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Across in Italy it has been impossible to miss the positive contributions of Tommaso Menoncello and Ross Vintcent, both also 21. Menoncello has returned from injury to confirm himself as one of the continent’s most promising young backs; Vintcent, who was delivering pizzas in Exeter a few weeks ago, was at the heart of Saturday’s famous win over Scotland.

Ireland’s 22-year-old Joe McCarthy was sweeping all before him until he bumped into England’s George Martin, also 22, at Twickenham. France have not had the smoothest of tournaments but, in addition to Le Garrec, possess a clutch of fast-rising newcomers from the centre Nicolas Depoortère to the massive second-row Posolo Tuilagi. Wales’s Cameron Winnett has made an extremely positive start to his Test career, Dafydd Jenkins is captaining his national side at 21 and Mason Grady has the potential to be a long-time Test regular.

We have not even mentioned Léo Barré or Louis Bielle-Biarrey or Wales’s Alex Mann or England’s Chandler Cunningham-South or Scotland’s Harry Paterson. The Six Nations campaign directly after a World Cup is always a potential opportunity to pension off one or two old-timers and blood potential replacements but no longer are the latter holding tackle bags or settling for a couple of nervous minutes off the bench.

Partly this is a product of how rugby has developed: academy players are now training more regularly alongside their seniors at club level, age-group World Cups can fast-track their development and, physically, an increase in ball-in-play time suits fitter, younger bodies. Living a professional life from their mid to late teens helps, too, when the time comes to handling the mental demands of the highest level.

So if there was a “Shooting Star” award this year for tournament participants aged under 23, who would make the podium? Certainly Le Garrec, who will now have England breathing down his neck in Lyon this Saturday but has more than enough talent to cope. Even Antoine Dupont, now lighting up the sevens circuit, would have loved that mega pass against Wales, thrown by a player clearly not remotely throttled by a fear of failure.

Le Garrec’s one-handed scoop to pluck a loose ball off the deck while running at full tilt was similarly stunning, suggesting a polo player’s hand-eye coordination. Also quick enough to dummy his way over for a crucial try, the biggest threat to his well-being came from his teammates on the bench as they took it in turns to slap him on the head, fully aware the TV cameras were watching, following the announcement of his man of the match award.

Dupont will be back again once his Olympic adventure is done but the Brittany-reared Le Garrec, set to form a club half-back pairing with Owen Farrell for Racing 92 next season, is obviously a significant talent on a steep upward trajectory. Lightning quick off the mark with an eye for the try-line, he scored a hat-trick for Racing in the Top 14 against Oyonnax before Christmas and comparisons with the young Dupont have been pursuing him for some time.

It is no coincidence, either, that Italy’s form has perked up since the return to fitness of Menoncello. He missed the World Cup after suffering a bicep injury against Ireland in a warm-up game last August but has re-emerged this spring as a player of enormous potential, capable of operating in the centre or on the wing. At just 19 he became the youngest scorer in the championship for 55 years on his debut against France in Paris two years ago.

This weekend’s wooden spoon decider against Wales offers another chance to demonstrate his ability, just as the France-England game will be a further test of both Martin’s and Feyi-Waboso’s pedigree. The latter’s late try against Scotland and ball-carrying threat against the Irish have underlined the ability which persuaded Steve Borthwick to pick him in the first place, to the dismay of Welsh supporters who had hoped the Cardiff-born winger might end up in a red jersey instead.

If England do manage to overcome France’s enormous pack this weekend, though, it could just be Martin who emerges as the player every other European nation most envies. The Leicester colossus has all the physical credentials to be the “new Martin Johnson”, or at least something approximating that impossible description, and it increasingly feels relevant that England’s best two recent performances, versus Ireland at the weekend and South Africa in the World Cup semi-finals, have both coincided with the giant Martin starting in the second row. Roar like an English lion again in Lyon on Saturday night and the boy George really will have arrived as a major star.

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