Eight new caps in French squad
A raft of post-World Cup retirements and an emphasis on sevens means that the French squad for the opening two games against Scotland and Ireland in this year’s Six Nations will be very different to the team that finished third in last summer’s World Cup.
Published by John Birch, January 23rd, 2015
3 minute read
This week's French training squad at Marcoussis
The pack at least will be familiar. Only twelve of the 23 names announced by the FFR played in the World Cup, but nine of them are forwards. On the other hand the three backs, scrumhalf Yanna Rivoalen, centre Elodie Poublan and full-back Jessy Tremouliere, were mainly used as replacements. None of them were in the starting XV against Canada, for example.
Three other players with test experience – wing Julie Billes, prop Julie Duval and centre Céline Heguy – return having missed out on World Cup selection, but eight players will be making their test debuts.
Of these four have appeared for the successful French U20 team. The oldest and possibly the most exciting of these is full-back Caroline Boujard, who played for the U20s in 2012 and has been turning heads for Perpignan this season. Her match-winning performance against Montpellier a fortnight ago showed to a national TV audience what she is capable of, and will certainly have helped her selection. The other ex-U20 players graduating to the full squad are centre Camille Cabalou, hooker Wendy Divoux, and scrum-half Marie Menanteau.
The other four players are new to international fifteens, although back row Pauline Rayssac has played international sevens. For the rest - centre Carla Neisen, prop Elisa Ceravolo and back row Céline Ferer - this will be a new experience, although Neisen was selected for the national U18 camp last year.
Remarkably nine (over a third) of the players in the squad do not come from clubs in the Top 8 – the top level of French club rugby. This includes four from Bayonne, where Jean-Michel Gonzalez, the newly appointed forwards coach, has worked for the past 10 years. In contrast current league leaders, Lille, provide only one player – Yanna Rivoalen. She and Caen’s Julie Duval are also the only players from the north of France.
The squad:
*New cap