Fresh off ripping 42 points through Australia in Brisbane, France have packed their bags, boarded another long-haul flight, and landed in Tokyo to close out their southern tour against Japan — because apparently one 22-hour round trip wasn't enough of a flex. Galthié's travelling circus rolls into the National Stadium on Saturday with the smug air of a side that flew its reserves to the other side of the planet and still won comfortably. The B-team detonated; now the whole operation gets an encore.
The one wrinkle is Matthieu Jalibert's adductor, which has been given a gentle spa weekend in training as a precaution, though the fly-half is expected to be operational by kickoff. There's something very French about resting a muscle the way you'd rest a fine wine — carefully, respectfully, and with total confidence it'll be ready when uncorked. Oscar Jégou, meanwhile, is nursing a shoulder knock in the recovery phase, because you don't put 42 on the Wallabies without a few dents in the bodywork.
Otherwise, Galthié is expected to largely reconfirm the side that dismantled Australia — Maxime Lucu and Romain Ntamack pulling the strings at half-back, Yoram Moefana and Nicolas Brau-Boirie in the midfield engine room. When your team just scored six tries on tour and the coach's response is "yeah, let's basically run it back," that's not conservatism, that's a man who knows he's holding a winning hand and refuses to fold it out of politeness.
The stakes are real, too: France sit second in the Northern Conference on seven points, chasing Ireland's ten, so there's no room for a tourist's shrug in Tokyo. Japan at home, playing at their trademark hundred-miles-an-hour, in front of a passionate crowd, is precisely the kind of banana skin that turns a routine tour finale into a highlight reel for the wrong team. Les Bleus know it. The Brave Blossoms are counting on it.
So France arrive in Japan jet-lagged, slightly bruised, top-heavy with talent, and one adductor away from full strength — which for most nations would be a crisis and for France is just Tuesday. If the tour so far has proved anything, it's that this squad has gears its opponents can't find on the map. Tokyo on Saturday is the last dance of the southern swing, and the French band is tuning up for one more number nobody asked for but everybody fears. Vive le rugby, and mind the jet lag.
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