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Wales, France and England are the three teams fighting it off for the Six Nations title after two rounds. France and England have two wins each, while Wales has a win and a draw.
Wales started off with a 16-16 draw in Ireland, a match in which they were down 0-13 but showed great resilience to come back and in the end they probably should have won that match. The next performance wasn’t too impressive, as Wales beat Scotland at home by just 4 points, 27-23, even though the match was much more one sided than the scoreline suggests. This Welsh side is definitely the best in Europe on par with England, they proved it time and time again in the last few years and with players coming back from injury, they look good value to win this Six Nations tournament – even though England are deserving favorites right now.
The fact that France has 2 wins after 2 matches is as inspiring as it is comical. The French team did great to start over after the humiliation suffered against New Zealand in the World Cup, hiring the very capable Guy Noves and bringing fresh blood in the squad. However, France was absolutely atrocious in the 23-21 win over Italy, a match they fully deserved to lose. They were poor against Ireland as well, it was one of the worst Rugby matches played in the Six Nations recently, but credit to France for edging it late with a score of 10-9 against an injury plagued, uninspired Ireland team. Furthermore, the comeback against Ireland was mostly due to Guy Noves’ tactics, as the players were really not that great. It remains to be seen how France will perform away from home.
Wales won the last 4 Head 2 Head matches against France, each time by 7+ points. In the last two years in the Six Nations Wales won 27-6 (2014, Cardiff) and 20-13 (Paris, 2015).
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Team news & lineups:
Wales keeps on getting players back from injury, as Davies and Roberts have been passed fit for this game. Halfpenny continues to sit out, as does Webb. France has a massive injury crisis, as they will miss Fofana, Grosso, Fall, Huget, Thomas and O’Connor, all of them wing players!
Wales: 15 Liam Williams, 14 Alex Cuthbert, 13 Jonathan Davies, 12 Jamie Roberts, 11 George North, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Gareth Davies, 8 Taulupe Faletau, 7 Sam Warburton, 6 Dan Lydiate, 5 Alun Wyn Jones, 4 Bradley Davies, 3 Samson Lee, 2 Scott Baldwin, 1 Rob Evans
France: 15 Maxime Médard, 14 Virimi Vakatawa, 13 Maxime Mermoz, 12 Jonathan Danty, 11 Djibril Camara, 10 Jules Plisson, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Damien Chouly, 7 Antoine Burban, 6 Wenceslas Lauret, 5 Alexandre Flanquart, 4 Paul Jedrasiak, 3 Rabah Slimani, 2 Guilhem Guirado (c), 1 Jefferson Poirot
Wales is a massive favorite in this match, as the sheer quality difference between the teams is too big to make up without home court advantage – which France doesn`t have this time. However, the statistics of the two sides coming into this match provide us with excellent odds on Wales, odds that punters have already started to speculate. The fact that France won twice and Wales did not seem impressive according to the final scores forced the bookies to provide exceptional odds on the hosts.
Fact is that Wales played some great rugby in this tournament, they should have defeated Ireland in Dublin and definitely could have won by 10+ points against Scotland. Without hitting full gear, Wales was still pretty impressive so far and they are sure to put on a superior performance in such a key match. As for France, credit to them for scraping two hard fought home wins, but they could have easily lost both of those games.
France still needs time under Guy Noves in order to become a good team and a road game against Wales might just show them that they are still far away from top class level. The visitors played 160 minutes of rugby in this Six Nations campaign and were a disgrace for 135 minutes, only to bend general perception because of 25 great minutes against a horrible, tired and depleted Irish team. They were able to dominate an injury – struck Irish scrum in the end of last round’s match and that (and only that) brought them the win, thanks to Noves’ brilliance of fielding his best scrum players in the second half. But that scenario will not happen against Wales, as the Welsh scrum is miles ahead of the Irish one and the hosts also have proper replacements.
France will not be able do dominate the scrum and if they can’t do that, than all is lost against a versatile Welsh team that also possesses arguably the best fly-half in the world right now, Dan Biggar. And that is particularly true as France is depleted on the wings.
Leaving aside the quality difference, the chemistry issues of France and the overall Welsh superiority, there is the very important fact that no team in the world is better at exploiting opponents’ weaknesses than Wales. The well rounded, compact Wales team is an absolute expert in routing inferior opponents with chemistry problems and that will work like a glove against France, as the Head 2 Head also suggests. Look for a determined, solid performance by Wales, while France will crumble under handling errors and will concede a ton of penalties for Dan Biggar to transform.
It`s money time for Wales here after two solid performances that did not end with the proper results. The hosts know that a win is mandatory here and will surely go for the kill against a side they know they can beat pretty heavily. After missing a win against Ireland and a big win against Scotland, I believe Wales will claim a statement today and ruin a French team that, besides all its problems, also struggles with injuries. My tip is Wales to win and cover the 7,5 handicap. Odds are dropping on this bet. Prediction: Wales – France 26 – 14.
Pick: Wales -7,5
Odds: 1.90 @ Sbobet
Stake: 9
Possible profit: 8.10
Event date: 26 February
