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Vakatawa returns as France make four changes for England
By Ian Cameron
French offensive weapon Virimi Vakatawa will start against England in Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations match against France at Twickenham, after making his return to the starting side after an injury layoff.
Vakatawa is one of four changes to the French from the side which beat Ireland in Dublin three weekends ago.
Vakatawa was ruled out of action in January. Romain Ntamack is also set to make his return to the side, should head coach Fabien Galthie spring him from the bench.
Utility forward Bernard Le Roux misses out with a muscle strain and is replaced in the engine rooms by Romain Taofifenua.
Damian Penaud replaces Gabin Villiere on the wing. Toulon revealed that the Villiere is to undergo surgery on his handy following an injury sustained against Racing 92 in the Top 14.
Meanwhile England have named Max Malins at full-back in place of Elliot Daly.
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Latest Comments
Yeah me too. I think the Welsh have it in them to make it a contest in the first half. Give the boks' second stringers a headache. Disrupting lineouts is one area the welsh could cause problems. Bok lineouts have been subpar.
And then fronting up in the collisions and at the rucks. If the boks get the ascendancy there too early, it could be a hiding. Jaden hendrikse had a tough game against the Scots - who were very good at disrupting the boks flow. The welsh would have taken note of this i'm sure.
But the bok bench will finish the welsh off i'm afraid.
Go to commentsYes, certainly. As an AB fan happy to be included in that top 3 of "matches that are routinely decided by one score" now, we were well outside that for a few years.
They have not had enough games yet. You can't undo so many poor years just like that. Asking for miracles like SA losing is not the way to get back to number 1.
They might get there as those bad years filter out of the rankings but it's guarenteed to be great fun going back and forth with SA once that happens.
Admittedly Foster only really had one bad year (21/22 season), but that's more likely because COVID stopped a lot of tough games from being played, and effected the other countries they did play far more than themselves.
A real shame we both don't get to see it unfold first with our regions teams in SR!
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