Leone Nakarawa scoops major award

First, whether the top 14 plays during the window isn't the issue. It actively prevents the first choice France internationals from playing for their country and holds its final so late that the participants can't play at the start of the window.

No other league attacks international rugby like this. It's not a matter of dictating someone else's selection policy, it's a matter of calling out the only country that doesn't act in solidarity with the rest of the sport. We have a system where a country only earns money from home tests and every other nation honours that by sending teams that help their opponents maximise revenue.

And its a totally false equivalence to try to argue that when the likes of NZ, Ireland and England are doing the same by only selecting from home based talent. We're only talking one or two players not the whole team and in any case these countries believe that the team would otherwise not play so well due to availability, travel, workload and cohesion.

As for the “shining light for rugby” argument, yes it's great that players get employment, not so great when other countries lose access to them, either permanently because they end up playing for France or temporarily due to being overworked or told not to play. And we haven't even talked about the wages arms race which has had a huge negative impact on the financial sustainability of the global game.

For France the question is how to manage player welfare concerns within an 11-month season?

Is it right to devalue a tour to NZ, or should the ‘welfare savings’ be made within the Top 14, not outside it?

The BF’s kicking coaches can only do so much. They even had DC working with Renee. The real question: why hasn’t she nailed execution knowing that she is clearly on the outer atm & needs a compelling point of difference?