The battle lines have been drawn, and next weekend the first clash of arms will be heard on France’s controversial tour of New Zealand. The barbs have been flying in both directions: those from the Shaky Isles have been outraged by the selection of a national ‘B’ team for the visit, while French apologists remain pugnacious about the withdrawal of senior players from the tour.
‘Friendly banter’ does not do justice to the strength of feeling on both sides, and it undersells the very real threat presented to the credibility of the international game. The latest to give voice to the naked anger in New Zealand was ex-All Blacks scrum-half turned Sky Sports pundit Justin Marshall on The Breakdown:
“To be honest, I’m really disappointed. The side the French have brought is clearly underpowered. The average age is 25 [and] the average number of caps is 9.3.
“Forty-nine per cent of the players have got no caps at all. It’s a development team with a few senior players involved.
“In my mind, it’s complete ‘BS’ the way that they’re treating this tour, the way that the French always seem to have come up with excuses to not bring their top players, I feel they disrespect the international window.
“Our fans deserve to see their best players playing in our country against our All Blacks because we do that in November to them, we send our very best players for filling their stadiums and giving the fans the best experience they can get by seeing the best players in the world.
“The reality is, they’ve left 70% of their best players in France, and I just don’t feel that that is within the decency and the respect of the game.”
Fabien Galthié, the head coach of Les Bleus, had already stated the case from the French point of view at the announcement of his 37-strong touring party. With the Top 14 final on 28 June coming only one week before the first Test in Dunedin, players from the two top clubs in France, Union Bordeaux-Bègles and Stade Toulousain, had to be withdrawn from the original selection.
“We don’t have a choice other than picking players who have [already] finished their [Top 14] season,” he said. “We have no other solution. Or [maybe] the New Zealanders can help us to reinvent our domestic season schedule?”
The background to this narrative makes for essential reading. In 2020, World Rugby shifted the mid-year international window from June to July, precisely to avoid this kind of clash between the club and international versions of the game. Prior to Covid-19 epidemic, the previous two Top 14 finals were played out on 2nd June 2018 and 15th June 2019. The dates for the past four Top 14 finals have progressively extended the club season to the point it is once again invasive: from 25th June in 2021 to 28th June in 2024 and 2025. Wherever the international game gave ground, the Top 14 responded by making another land-grab.
That part of French national supremo’s predicament was created for him. The second layer of defence was much harder to understand or support.
“French rugby players potentially have 37 matches to play with their club, to which we [can] add 11 matches for the French XV. Who can play 50 rugby matches per season? Nobody.
“After 25 matches or 2,000 minutes played, the factors limiting a player’s performance and development are multiplied. This is a public health issue.”
The most concrete red line highlighted is 2,000 minutes played, at which point the limiting factors of player welfare become urgent and it is ‘a public health issue’. The five players most often mentioned in dispatches as possible additions to the tour are Romain Ntamack, Thomas Ramos and Thibaud Flament from Toulouse, and UBB’s pair of flying wings Damian Penaud and Louis Bielle-Biarrey.
With the Frenchmen having just completed a 29-round club season and the Six Nations at the beginning of the year to be lumped on to the scales, you would expect their playing time to comprehensively outweigh their counterparts in Super Rugby Pacific, who have played no international rugby at all.
There are three players [Ramos, Penaud and Bielle-Biarrey] who would approximate the 2,000-minute red line if they played the whole of a three-Test series in New Zealand, but Ntamack and Flament would still be well within acceptable parameters.
The comparison with equivalent players from the top two clubs in Super Rugby Pacific [plus Rieko Ioane] over 18 or 19 rounds of SRP may be surprising.
All those players would be comfortably passing Galthié’s point of no return if they were to start the three-match series in July, and then play through the entirety of the Rugby Championship and the November tour of Europe.
Take the investigation a stage further, and it is not too difficult at all to pull up the stone, look underneath and find a busy host of legitimate tour candidates at a well-managed club such as Toulouse.
That group alone would plug another 179 international caps into to the French effort in New Zealand, and none of them are close to red-lining. Forwards such as Marchand, Flament and Meafou, and backs such as Ntamack and Barassi could not but benefit from the experience and come back wiser warriors for the 2027 World Cup in Australia.
As ex-All Blacks wing Jeff Wilson pointed out on the same show as Marshall:
“The part I’m disappointed about is that if they [France] genuinely want to win a World Cup, at some point, [if] you want to give yourself the best opportunity to do that, you have to take on the top teams away from home – because in two years’ time a World Cup is being played in Australia, and that’s familiar territory to us.”
Although the UBB and Toulousain players recovering from the full 29-round experience of a gruelling Top 14 competition would be admittedly hard to integrate into the touring squad after the first Test at the Forsyth-Barr stadium, the figures for overall playing time suggest a far stronger squad could have been selected, even within Galthié’s own boundaries.
The selected group of next-level Top 14 hopefuls will still present a definite challenge to the All Blacks. Les Bleus will use a Springbok structure with at least six forwards, maybe even seven, on the bench, and they will look to pack the pine with size and power to get over the top of New Zealand in the last half-hour of the game.
The gameplan model will draw as much juice from an outstanding away win over Ireland in Dublin at the Six Nations as it is able. Galthié opted for a 7-1 bench split in that climactic match, with five starting forwards subbed off only eight minutes into the second half and a number seven [Oscar Jégou] replacing a centre [Barassi] at the same time.
Even if their top personnel are missing, the All Blacks will still encounter an unusual level of cohesion between French forwards and backs. It won’t be heavily structured but it will be instinctive, even among the very big 135kg+ behemoths of the pack. It was the appearance of those six French forward ‘finishers’, and their ability to mix raw power with the nuances of a back which turned the tide against the Irish. France scored 27 unanswered points and that was game, set and match.
That is 15 Ramos and nine Maxime Lucu, sandwiching a meaty filling of forwards Anthony Jelonch, Paul Boudehent and François Cros on the initial winning counter-ruck. Then the ball slips smoothly through the hands of 140kg leviathan Meafou, as it wings its way to the far left edge of the field and the deadly duo of Penaud and Bielle-Biarrey.
The ball is spun out via two forwards and two backs en route to number seven Boudehent on the left wing, and the key passer and kicker on the journey back across field are huge second row Meafou with an offload, and Jégou – the flanker impersonating a 12 – with the chip through to the Ireland goal-line. Even without any of those forwards available for the tour of New Zealand, France will still have a scaled down version of that connectivity in their attacking arsenal.
When the bench forwards needed to turn on the power tap, it became a true gusher.
First Meafou smashes Ireland skipper Caelan Doris out of the road on the carry, then prop Finlay Bealham is bounced out of the ruck as clean as a whistle by Jelonch. The Connacht man is still trying to find his compass when he gets the treatment for a second time from the same player, and can only stand and watch as Jégou plunges over from close range.
There is little doubt the French ‘B’ team will provide a more-than-useful workout for the All Blacks. There will be plenty of new sights and sounds to enjoy for the tourists, and the size of their forwards and use of a 6/2 bench will give New Zealand an important presentiment of the Springboks at the Rugby Championship.
But make no mistake, it will be test with a small ‘t’, rather than the full-blooded Test series between the crowned heads of European rugby and the mighty All Blacks it should rightly have been. It could have been one of the great ones. The real ‘oohs and aahs’ which would have accompanied the presence of a Meafou or a Bielle-Biarrey will be missing, and the international rugby calendar is all the poorer for it.
Any HIA player would still be available. They have protocols where he would still train each week, just have to remove himself from the small amount of high intensity contact training the playing squad do.
Unless of course it was severe and he had symptoms, then we all wish plenty of rest. And in RE to NB below, you really think he thought that much about the players he included in the article? Maybe he said that, but as a reader I just looked at all the names, Costes or another and saw an example of work loads. It matter not whether they could have been selected (there are always so many other factors that dictate aval).
I’ve done a fair amount of digging since I wrote this article, and the more I dig the more confusing the situation becomes!
It would be impossible to guess what the criteria for selection were if you compared a typical France 6N squad and the first Test squad in NZ together, without knowing anything in advance.
So when you say ‘we know nothing’ you are about right and it is very hard for us to guess what the real criteria are…
What we can say is over 90% of both have played in 25+ games during the season and the seasonal workload for the ‘B’ team was just as great as it has been for those involved in the 6N, and for UBB and Toulosue in the final…
The real problem is that ‘Rested’ means nothing when a player gets to 30+ games in a season, The impacts are already there in the body and mind and cannot be eradicated by a break. The fatigue is mental and physical and only a prolonged off-season truly helps.
I will try to explain this in another piece later this week.
The more it stinks what?
Please, tell us openly what would be the FFR hidden agenda about this selection, because I hardly can’t see one beside preserving some key players and not to expose them to potential severe injuries.
The linked paper is telling that there has been a late addendum (early June) to previous negociations from Sep. 2024 (When Galthié said that he will not select his “premium players” for this tour).
Then, they are listing some conditions for selection:
a) players not used or little used during the six nations (potential 400’ of playing time).
about your concern, that’s true for all of them: Le Garrec (50’ in 3 games), Fickou (80’ in 1 game) and Seconds (0’ in 0 game).
b) players should not have clocked a too large playing time during the season. This is very vague and could be measured beside other metrics like age, position, resting time, performance data, number of games, etc. All of your picks are rested back players (their last game was 7 June). They also added to their playing total 2 more games already (England A and first NZ).
But the criticaly important limit is obviously in the last point:
c) players selection will be subject to an agreement reached with their club and negociations for those players will start early June… And about that, we certainly know nothing except that those released were agreed by their employer.
No there's nothing on that press release about the metrics. That came latter, but unfortunately this is not publicly available on the website but was relayed in various press outlets.
Here's an example in rugbyrama https://www.rugbyrama.fr/2025/06/06/video-xv-de-france-convention-ffr-lnr-quelle-equipe-pour-la-tournee-en-nouvelle-zelande-12745472.php
The difference between the players who are in the finals and the ones who are not, is extra days to recover from the season. What matter is not the extra games but the actual break time.
Don't get me wrong I would love to have a global welfare policy that limits the number of games / minutes played, but I’m afraid if we do that they will be even less players available for the summer tours…
On a side note: in Finland we would Looove to be able to play 25 games a season!!! 🤣
Alan, there is nothing in that link mentioning 2000 minutes and 25 games.
This what Galthie actually said:
He is clearly talking about ‘French rugby players’ without any disctinction for the finalists. And why would he? It would make no sense to insist on such a distinction.
FYI both Nolann Le Garrec and Gael Fickou will have played well over 2000 minutes and 30+ games if they start in Tests 2 & 3. There are others in the tour squad who will post similar figures. Segonds and NLG are already sitting on 32 matches each right now.
So does their player welfare not matter because Racing, or other teams outside the top six did not make the playoffs? An extra seven games makes no difference?
Quite frankly, the more I’ve looked into it the more this situation stinks.
Stop rewriting history!
This ‘rule’ does not exist for every French players, but you are right maybe it should!
This ‘rule’ was only created to be able to select players from the finals.
Read the press release from the FFR, I know it’s in French and maybe I shouldn’t trust google translate but it’s there: https://www.ffr.fr/actualites/xv-de-france/xv-de-france-masculin-accord-sur-la-mise-a-disposition-des-joueurs-internationaux.
You might disagree on the metrics they chose to use, but it was always only for the players who were in the final! And once the decided on the metrics, they didn’t lie and apply them. There is no concept of maximum number of minutes / games played for the player who did not take part to the final.
It absolutely does not.
The 2000 minute/25 game rule is a general guideline for player welfare.
Even you must be capable of common sense - what would be the point of establishing a player welfare ‘rule’ for one set of players, and an entirely different one for the others?
If you think there is second set, what are they?
There will be likely 12 players from the current touring squad who will have played in over 30 games by the end of this tour, let alone 25.
A number of those will also have exceeded 2000 minutes, and thus well in the welfare red zone.
Wake up and smell your own BS.
“Former All Blacks scrum-half Justin Marshall has heavily criticised the French selection for this month’s tour”
What is JM remarks now after a so called poor AB’s performance against under strength French team. In all truthfully speaking this was disrespectful showing by the AB’s to their fans!
The rule depends on the Top 14 finals from the begining!
The initial agreement beetween the National team and top 14 was: “No player who took place in the finals can be selected for the NZ tour”.
Then the French federation managed to negociate with the top 14 that up to 5 players who played the final can be selected but only if they have played less than 2000 minutes or less than 25 games.
Please make an effort.
Since when does player welfare, or Galthie’s ‘rule’ depend on the Top 14 finals??
Wake up.
You seemed to avoid the European rugby minutes on your tables…
Kiwis should thank God that France didn't send their A team…
“only five of the actual 1st Test 23-man squad had fewer than 25 games under their belts”
>> irrelevant because none of those players were involved in the top 14 finals. Please make an effort!
18 of the 23 had already played 25+ games before they arrived too JW.
18 of 23 man squad for the first Test v NZ had played 25+ games this eason.
You haven’t demonstrated anything though - only five players of those not selected hit 2000 minutes, and only five of the actual 1st Test 23-man squad had fewer than 25 games under their belts…
The stats panel as it stands already included a max of 34 games for the French players and 19 for the NZers, but the mins of the French are not way ahead.
I thought Ntamack was injured?
So Nick you’ve certainly prompted a little debate this time! Been thinking through your main point and there’s a wider context that delivered the tour outcome that you haven’t touched on by focusing solely on French playing time.
Q. Are 2000 minutes AND 25 games sensible welfare limits? Yes and particularly if the French have decided this, since it’s their unalienable right to do so.
Q. Why have the clubs not ensured the players remained within that for the NZ tour, a la SA model? Because their league is the most commercially successful in the world and they own the rights to the players, clubs are entitled to say when they play as things stand.
Q. Why do the Top14 play offs take place so late? Because they eliminated Top 14 games from the 6N period which extended their calendar.
Now, the real crux of this comes down to resting players to stay below the limits in preparation for the summer tour and that’s where the FFR/LNR agreement appears to have failed. Unlike England, where the RFU pays large sums to retain those controls AND ensure player welfare is respected, the French have a different agreement.
Now, if WR are unhappy with this then they know who to talk to but it will be a difficult conversation against the backdrop, and ultimate driver of this scenario, which is the success of the Top 14.
NZR ofc, knew EXACTLY what they were getting, since players touring is one among many aspects covered by tour agreements. Just look at the Lions issue with Aus to see that.
And after all that has been said and done, the French didn’t do too badly after all, did they…???
Yes I don’t think these posters actually knew what they were talking about. They have just developed counter arguments (to you’re article after reading it because they didn’t like the conclusion) rather than having ever come up with their own opinion/diagnosis themselves beforehand.
The who touring squad has played over 25 games lol