Six Nations 2020: France are finally united and England know they are in for a scrap in Paris – The Sun

FRANCE used to be a team fond of red wine and a fag or two — but this lot have the champagne on ice and can be a seriously dangerous side ahead of their home World Cup in 2023.

Fabien Galthie’s young guns are a team who feed off emotion and passion but they have refreshed everything after their quarter-final elimination at Japan 2019 and should not carry any scars from that into this Six Nations.

After all the problems of the past decade and player revolts, they are dragging themselves into the professional era at last.

That said, I still expect England to do the business, get the victory and set up an assault on the Grand Slam.

I’ve got to say, I have always relished the French hospitality. I also loved playing with them, too.

At Harlequins we had the brilliantly Gallic second row, Nick Spanghero.

Spangy would call out lineout at Quins — and he would have an absolute meltdown if anyone messed it up.

For the next five minutes he would turn the air blue, laying into any of the guilty culprits, jumping up and down on the spot and firing off French expletives everywhere. It was a different rule for him when he got it wrong, mind you.

There were days in training towards the end of his contract that he downed tools, passed the tackle bag to someone else and casually smoked a fag on the touchline instead.

When challenged by a coach, he would utter: “Non, ce n’est pas possible” — pointing to a phantom injury somewhere on his body.

That’s the way these guys used to be for Les Bleus, too, but Galthie is working on changing that.

England will relish the challenge on Sunday. That drive to the impressive Stade de France stadium always got me fired up for the battle.

You’re on the bus, then bang… it hits you, this giant stadium is slap bang in front of you and you know it’s party time.

For club and country this ground was always one of my favourites to play at.

I have had some superb days there with Harlequins, winning in Europe against Stade Francais in 2008 when they were the best side in France. Also with England famously winning a World Cup semi-final in 2007 and then backing it up in the Six Nations there in 2008.

The atmosphere is electric — when we played Stade you had knights on horseback jousting and Can-can girls dancing.

It was utterly surreal at times but brilliant theatre.

Even though we lost the World Cup final to South Africa there in 2007, I still have a lot of time for the place and a guy like George Furbank coming in for his Test debut at full-back should go out there and enjoy it. He’s there on merit.

England won’t change their game-plan much from the World Cup and will look to put the pressure on France and make them hang themselves and give away penalties.

As a fully signed-up member of the No 8’s union, I always like to see a recognised ball player there — especially with no Billy Vunipola.

But Tom Curry is a clever player who has the footwork and ability to carry hard into traffic.

The full back-row blend with Courtney Lawes and Sam Underhill also has the ability to go after France’s half-backs, Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack.

Typically, France play through the petit general, the scrum-half of Dupont, and that is ingrained in their philosophy — but in the modern game you have to also attack off 10 and get it wide.

With guys like Damian Penaud, Gael Fickou and Virimi Vakatawa in there they would be foolish to restrict their attack.

And those first 25 minutes will be critical, with England likely to try to limit the opportunities for France.

It is set up for England to go on and win another Grand Slam — and I think they will.

The toughest test for them is Paris — then they go to Murrayfield a week later trying to win back the Calcutta Cup.

Get through those and you’re on the home straight.

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