With Antoine Dupont injured and half of Toulouse presumably in an ice bath, Fabien Galthié has solved his selection problem with typical French elegance: he's picked Bordeaux-Bègles and put a rooster on the badge. The halfback pairing is 100% UBB — Maxime Lucu, freshly promoted to captain, alongside his clubmate Matthieu Jalibert — which means France's entire game plan is being run by two men who already know what the other one is thinking at brunch. It's less a national team, more a club side that got upgraded at check-in.
The headline act is the return of Damian Penaud, France's try-scoring machine, back in the side after what French media gorgeously called a 'brutal axe.' Dropping Penaud is like unplugging a slot machine that only pays out — technically possible, spiritually confusing — and now he's back on the wing in Christchurch with a point to prove and an All Blacks back three to prove it on. Alongside him, 21-year-old phenomenon Marko Gazzotti gets his first start in the back row, thrown into the deep end where the deep end is Ardie Savea.
But the story that deserves its own film is Jefferson Poirot. The loosehead last played for France 2,449 days ago — six and a half YEARS — having retired from international rugby, presumably to enjoy wine, peace, and functioning ears. Now he's back, un-retired, and his reward for this beautiful act of madness is a Saturday evening scrummaging in Christchurch in July. That's not a comeback, that's a man walking back into the burning building because he left his jacket inside. Legend. Absolute legend.
France arrive off the back of two straight Six Nations titles, and even this remixed, Dupont-less edition is dangerous in the way that all French teams are dangerous: nobody, including them, knows which France boards the plane. If the good one landed in Christchurch, Dave Rennie's first game becomes a horror film. If the other one landed, the All Blacks will win by 20 and the French press will produce criticism so poetic it wins awards.
Either way, respect to Galthié: sending a UBB core, a returning legend, a teenager-adjacent debutant starter and a promoted captain to Eden Park's angrier cousin is a power move. The Nations Championship wanted drama. France, as always, packed extra.
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