Jacques Brunel warns France of potential in England backlash in Six Nations clash

French fears | Brunel is wary of England
Paolo Bruno/Getty Images
Chris Jones9 March 2018

Jacques Brunel fears his France team is going to suffer an England backlash in Paris and could be “thrashed” as Eddie Jones’s side attempt to erase the memory of their defeat to Scotland.

England have won 24 out of 26 matches under Jones but were beaten 25-13 last time out at Murrayfield. In that same period France have picked up just eight victories from 24 matches and in this Six Nations they suffered successive defeats by Ireland and Scotland before beating Italy 34-17 in Marseille.

Brunel admitted there could be some nerves in the French camp. “I hope there’s no fear of being thrashed because that’s not a very positive attitude,” he said. “But there is a bit of fear of not being at the level we need to be at to compete, which does create a bit of stress ahead of the match.”

However, the former France flanker Serge Betsen believes Mathieu Bastareaud, the giant centre who scored a try on his recall to the side against Italy, can power the home team to victory.

“Of course I take France to win the Le Crunch and it will be a very close match because we will not see the same face of England as we saw against Scotland,” Betsen said.

“If England keep the game narrow then it will suit Bastareaud because he is so powerful. We all watched the Scotland win over England and we all got inspired for our game and it means the French team can identify some weaknesses in order to beat them.”

Ben Te’o has the job of negating Bastareaud for England and is relishing the challenge. “I am a big guy but I am up against a bigger guy,” Te’o said. “You don’t see many midfielders of his size running around. Credit to him, he is an athlete as well. He’s big but he can move. He’s strong and has an offload and I watched him the other week and he was very destructive.”

With Dylan Hartley injured, England are captained by Owen Farrell for the first time and Saracens team-mate Richard Wigglesworth is backing him to deliver a big performance at the Stade de France. Wigglesworth said: “Owen is just desperate to get better all the time and it’s infectious and rubs off on everyone.”

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