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France make two changes for U20 Championship final versus England
By Liam Heagney
Defending champions France have made two changes to their starting team to take on England this Friday in Cape Town in the final of the World Rugby U20 Championship. The French, who are chasing a fourth successive world title in a row, swatted aside New Zealand 55-31 in their semi-final last Sunday.
That swashbuckling seven-try performance at the DHL Stadium gained them a perfect revenge for their 26-27 pool loss to the Baby Blacks 10 days earlier in Stellenbosch.
Next on their agenda is revenge on England, whom they lost a Six Nations match to in Pau 31-45 on March 15 which confirmed the English as champions in that tournament.
They have altered one back and one forward in their run-on XV while also switching two of the replacement bench that retains the six/two forwards/backs split it had against the New Zealanders.
The French backline change is on the left wing where the impressive Hoani Bosmorin is marked absent following his 35th-minute exit in the semi-final. His place has been taken by Xan Mousques.
Meanwhile, in the front row, Lino Julien, who started the last day at tighthead, switches to loosehead for the benched Samuel Jean-Christophe and this has allowed Thomas Duchene to come back at No3.
Aside from Jean-Christophe dropping to the replacements at the expense of Lorencio Boyer-Gallardo, the other sub switch is the inclusion of Mathys Belaubre following the promotion of Mousques.
FRANCE (vs England, Friday): 1. Lino Julien, 2. Barnabe Massa, 3. Thomas Duchene, 4. Charly Gambini, 5. Corentin Mezou, 6. Joe Quere Karaba, 7. Geoffrey Malaterre, 8. Mathis Castro Ferreira; 9. Leo Carbonneau, 10. Hugo Reus; 11. Xan Mousques, 12. Robin Taccola, 13. Fabien Brau-Boirie, 14. Maxence Biasotto; 15. Mathis Ferte. Reps: 16. Thomas Lacombre, 17. Samuel Jean-Christophe, 18. Thomas Marceline, 19. Charles Kante Samba, 20. Brent Liufau, 21. Sialevailea Tolofua, 22. Mathys Belaubre, 23. Axel Desperes-Rigou.
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Latest Comments
This comment has been made before. What’s the use of win ratios, and peaking between world cups and then never winning world cups?
Pretty likely it will be successful given who we’re playing this year. Which is another issue with win ratios. Scotland’s win ratio boosted by games against teams like US and Canada. SA against Portugal and Wales and teams like France who haven’t travelled to SA or NZ in sometime.
World rankings make much more sense because it factors who you beat relative to your own ranking.
In that regard SA has been the most dominant - 186 weeks at no. 1 to next best Ireland at 67 weeks.
Go to commentsOf all the world cups. 1995 and 2023 were by far the toughest. To beat France at home and then run into an England team out for revenge… top it off with a sprinkle of AB’s out for blood. Stuff of legend. Don’t forget we did it despite losing our best player Marx and our backup hooker in the first two minutes. With the whole wit Kant saga leading up to the game. Despite NZ having zero injuries and an extra day to prepare, with a run in over Argentina we still somehow managed. This team refuse to give up.
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