France v Wales 27th February 2009

Well, there was never going to be any surprises in the Wales team to play France. Shane Williams had to come back, we missed him darting from the base of a ruck and running at heavy lumbering forwards against England. And can we forget his try against Ireland last year at Croke Park which effectively won us the Grand Slam.
The Henson debate will run on, but I think that at present he'd be more of an option coming off the bench with 20 minutes to go and use his big boot to keep the exciting French back three pinned in their own 22 and as far away from our line as possible. Mark Jones has unfortunately lost that instant pace that he once had after all those horrific knee injuries, Sackey beat him over 20 metres with a few start. I am a bit disappointed that they haven't included Jonathan Thomas on the bench as his dynamic running and line out work could be vital in the last quarter and with Charteris the only option to replace Gough or Alun Wyn it may be a bit of a worry if the game goes down to the wire. I have never really been a Dafydd Jones fan. Against a big back row he isn't that effective. The French will have Thierry Dusautoir (Toulouse), Imanol Harinordoquy (Biarritz), Fulgence Ouedraogo (Montpellier) in the back row and Martin Williams, Ryan Jones and Andy Powell should match them. I changes are to be made I'd think that with Ryan swapping to 8 if Andy Powell is ineffective I'd rather have Jonathan Thomas coming off the bench than Dafydd Jones. Elsewhere I don't see the French being able to match us. they have drafted in Mathieu Bastareaud (Stade Francais) at centre and the veteran Sylvain Marconnet (Stade Francais) in at prop and the remainder of the team will be made up from players from what I'd call the French Top 14's middle ranked teams. I still am confident that we have a more coherent game plan that can stifle any French flair that may emerge from them if you turn up to play. It'll be odd settling down on a Friday night to watch a Six nations game. How will Mrs CJ take it? Who knows?
My prediction - Gatland and Edwards will have worked out a plan to stop the French playing. Wales to win by ten points