France to play South Africa at Stade de France this Friday in inaugural Nations Championship clash

France will play South Africa at the Stade de France this Friday in the inaugural Nations Championship, in a match framed as a meeting between the two best teams from either side of the competition. The tournament final is two weeks away.

France enter the game as back-to-back Six Nations champions and South Africa as back-to-back world champions, and the French have a stated need to find a way to beat the Springboks in the 12 months before the Springboks take a run at winning a third consecutive World Cup. The two nations’ recent meetings have overwhelmingly favoured South Africa, and Fabien Galthié has said he has always selected sides with the hope of achieving something he called "improbable."

Over the past 15 years South Africa have beaten France nine times in 10 meetings, including the last five matches played in Paris. France’s sole victory in that period came in Marseille in 2022, and the Springboks eliminated France from the home World Cup in a 29-28 quarter-final.

That World Cup reversal was followed by a Paris defeat a year later, when South Africa won 32-17 despite spending half the game with 14 men. Reflecting on the French occasion, Rassie Erasmus said: "We tend to get up for the French team, out of respect," and added: "It doesn’t take a lot to get the team up. We’ve spoken about it. We enjoy the way the French people get behind their team, this cauldron, it’s not something a lot of our players have experienced, so when they get the opportunity they want to put their best foot forward, to represent themselves, their families and their country." On being labelled favourites he said: "The only bad thing about being favourites is you might get complacent. And we are definitely not complacent."

France are coping with a prolonged injury crisis: Galthié has used more than 100 players since June 2024 and currently has 30 players sidelined. The absent group account for 34% of France’s total playing time in that period and 41% of the points the side has scored during it, and the losses cover hookers, props, locks, flankers, centres and full-backs.

The issue is most acute at fly-half, where both Matthieu Jalibert and Romain Ntamack are missing, alongside regular understudies Thomas Ramos and Antoine Hastoy. With limited specialist options, Galthié has named Antoine Dupont at fly-half and Maxime Lucu at No 9. Dupont previously played eight games at ten for Toulouse during an injury crisis in 2024, and Lucu filled in last week after Ntamack went off injured during the Test against Fiji.

Galthié described the selection as a gamble and a crafted response to the problem, saying: "It’s been a huge challenge to overcome, but we’ve really enjoyed trying to design a solution." He added: "They are two icons in France, one at Bordeaux and the other at Toulouse, and we wanted to bring them together to lead this French team on Friday night. It won’t be easy, but we think it’s the best solution." There is an expectation the pair may swap positions during the match.

Erasmus noted South Africa also have notable absences—Frans Malherbe, RG Snyman, Kwagga Smith, André Esterhuizen, Handré Pollard and Cheslin Kolbe are all missing—but he has been able to select a pack whose eight forwards have almost as many caps between them as the entire French XV. Galthié has recalled Julien Marchand at hooker and Grégory Alldritt at No 8, yet the selected French XV have just 611 caps in total and seven players with fewer than five caps each.

Galthié has blamed the domestic set-up for the accumulation of injuries and selected a side on the basis of Top 14 form while restructuring his backroom staff. France released Shaun Edwards and Vlok Cilliers and replaced them with coaches drawn from the Top 14; Maxime Petitjean has been brought in from Toulon to work on kicking and Geoffrey Doumayrou from Montpellier to run the defence. Doumayrou is 37, played for the national team as recently as 2019, moved straight into coaching at Montpellier and "within two seasons had turned them into the tightest defence in the league."

France have spent years seeking a formula to beat the Springboks and will test the latest iteration of that work when they meet South Africa at the Stade de France on Friday.