France Six Nations Team

The French are the brilliant but temperamental artists of the Six Nations championship. Gifted with a large player pool and backed by strong domestic competition, the French are genuine title contenders in every Six Nations championship they participate in.

Stats:

Six Nations titles (outright): 17
Six Nations titles (shared): 8
Grand Slams: 9
First won the Six Nations: 1955
Last Six Nations title: 2010
Home ground: Stade de France, Paris
Team colours: Royal Blue

Strengths:

While France boasts a good all-round game, it is the French back play that has earned them the most accolades. Classic French rugby features back-line players running from deep within their own half, using pace, excellent interlocking skills and decisive lines of running to set up tries.

The French are particularly dangerous on the break away, and can turn a momentary lapse of control by the opposing team into a try. In recent years France has also blooded a new generation of fast, mobile but powerful loose forwards, as exemplified by the brilliant Thierry Dusautoir.

Weaknesses:

While the French are the best team in the world on their day, they are also capable of playing some dreadful rugby. Their team is renowned for producing chaotic, aimless rugby at just those moments when they threaten to triumph, and loss of discipline in these situations has cost France countless games over the years.

Six Nations History:

The French played their first Five Nations Championship in 1910, four years after their first test match against New Zealand. The French were the whipping boys of the tournament during those early years, losing repeatedly to the home nations sides. The French were banned from the tournament in 1932 when the sport threatened to go professional in France.

The French next participated in the Five Nations in 1947. It took them a further eight years to secure their first Five Nations championship, which they shared with Wales in 1955, before they came of age and won their first outright title in 1959.

In the years since France claimed its first championship title, the French have become a powerful force in the tournament, winning almost half of the Six Nations tournaments played since 1955. The French are also the only team in the tournament’s history to have won back-to-back championships whilst fielding an unchanged team.