Antoine Dupont

It’s surely going to be worth the admission price on its own on Sunday 15 February when Wales host France at Principality Stadium – Tomos Wiliams v Antoine Dupont.

It looks like things are getting to get even worse before they get any better for Warren Gatland’s Wales after they were blown away by France in a 43-0 humiliation in Paris. As an opening gambit in a Six Nations championship, it was a pretty dire scoreline – the first time Wales had failed to score in a Five or Six Nations game since France won 51-0 at Wembley back in 1998.

As if things were not tough enough for Wales on Friday night – French crowd, the return of Romain Ntamack, and, of course, the irresistible will of Antoine Dupont – comes news of a new opponent. Dupont – widely regarded as the best rugby player in the world, and by many as the best of all-time – is now fueled, not just by the Euros paid to him by Toulouse, but also by bitcoin.

Antoine Dupont can’t wait to get back into action in the Guinness Six Nations and he will return to captain Les Bleus against Wales on Friday 31 January. The Toulouse scrum half missed the 2024 tournament to concentrate on playing Sevens rugby for France at the Olympic Games.

For Rio Dyer, his moment of rugby renewal this summer came from watching a Frenchman connect with his nation. Dyer – who had an extremely busy 2023-24 season for Wales and his Dragons region – could have been forgiven for switching off completely from the sport after a 12-month stretch that went from last year’s World Cup build-up to this summer’s tour to Australia.

Cardiff flanker James Botham has been added to Wales’ training squad ahead of Saturday’s clash with South Africa at Twickenham. Botham, who has 10 caps, provides cover across the back row and lifts the number of players in Warren Gatland’s squad to 38.

With three rounds of the Six Nations gone and two games remaining, Wales are where they finished last season’s tournament – in fifth place. Yet, despite losing their opening three matches, they could have beaten Scotland and England, they had an excellent spell of pressure against the Irish for 20 minutes.

The four Welsh regions have a break from the United Rugby Championship this weekend, but that doesn’t mean life is going to get easier. In fact, it looks tougher in some respects with three of them facing club opposition in Europe and the Ospreys up against the Italians of Benetton who they lost to last week.

The Wales squad have arrived home from France and it turns out there are different ways of reacting to losing a Rugby World Cup quarter-final. You did not need to know the results, or have watched the games, the faces of Wales, Ireland and France players gave it away.

Wales’ walking wounded have broken into a jog. That was the message from the Wales camp out in France as they try to heal bodies and soothe aches ahead of their World quarter-final clash against Argentina on Saturday.

Wales record victory over Australia has seen their odds on winning the World Cup almost halve overnight. Warren Gatland’s red wall shut out the Aussies with a record 40-6 triumph that has seen their price on lifting the trophy drop from 40/1 before the game to just 22/1 this morning (Mon).

In Warren Gatland’s first tenure with Wales, he was innovative and progressive. He utilised the rule of 60 caps, employed Shaun Edwards as defence coach, located training camps in Poland and Switzerland, oversaw 45-minute training sessions, built a cryotherapy programme, captured Paul Stridgeon as head of physical performance, and made Sam Warburton a young captain – all in a quest to be world class.