On Sunday, the 33-year-old tight-head prop will pull on the red jersey once more at the Principality Stadium and is set to earn his 79th cap as a starter against France.
It marks a swift return to centre stage after coming off the bench in last weekend’s heavy defeat to England — his first Wales appearance since stepping away to play club rugby across the Channel for Provence in the French second tier.
For Francis, the decision to come back was about unfinished business.
“It’s been amazing, a few years away, family time, but I’ve missed international rugby and it’s awesome to be back,” he says.
“It’s still a bit surreal, the first week was taking it all in, but I’ve found my feet and the boys have got stuck into me a bit more this week and it’s good to be back.”
When Francis left the Ospreys three years ago, it appeared his Test career was over after he opted to devote himself entirely to his new club.
But although playing in a league where matchdays resemble festivals — oysters served pitch-side, champagne flowing in hospitality suites — offered a contrast to the harsher realities currently facing Welsh rugby, it eventually rekindled his desire to contribute at international level.
“Yes, distance makes the heart grow fonder as they say,” Francis reflects.
“My two young girls are flying over tomorrow for their first game, it’s why I play, it’s family and to be able to come back and for them to be able to watch, it’s just amazing.”
At 33, Francis knows he is in the latter stages of his career, yet there is no sense of winding down. If anything, the ambtion burns as fiercely as ever, even though he has returned to a squad that has not managed a win in the tournament for the almost three years he has been away.
“If I didn’t have that fire, I wouldn’t be here. The day those game day nerves go, then it’s time to walk away. I definitely had them last week and hopefully I get a chance to have them again this week.”
The former Ospreys front rower’s spell in France sharpened both his personal outlook and his technical craft.
Competing in a division renowned for brutal scrummaging duels refined his core skills as a tight-head.
“Definitely a better person, a better father, a better husband,” he says of the experience. “In the league I play in, their set piece as a tight-head is a good a league as any to keep honing those skills and developing them.”
Those skills will be tested to the limit against a French pack brimming with confidence. Les Bleus arrive in Cardiff as one of the tournament’s form sides, capable of scoring from broken play or suffocating opponents through forward dominance.
“Yes it’s going to be tough, but we’re at home and we’ve got to try and get the crowd behind us,” Francis says.
“We know what’s coming with the French team if you give them momentum and if we start the same as we did against England, it doesn’t matter who you play. If you give them that first 20 minutes the French will probably roll with it more.”
He speaks with the pragmatism of a seasoned campaigner. Wales’ recent struggles have been painful to witness from afar.
“For every Welsh fan it’s been a tough time,” he admits. “It was tough before the World Cup and we managed to put a few results together then, but it’s never nice seeing your mates going through that and not being able to help.”
Now he has that opportunity.
“I have a chance now to try and come back and help and get through that. The group, the staff, everyone is working as hard as they can, the effort is there in abundance. The coaches are in their offices until 9 at night trying to help us. Hopefully it’s going to turn and the performances and results will come.”
France’s dangermen are well known to him. He highlights the electric Louis Bielle-Biarrey — “He’s on fire. He’s having a great season with Bordeaux” — but insists Wales must focus inward rather than be overawed.
“Just got to attack it from first whistle,” he says. “The French team can score from anywhere… That could happen in the first minute and we can't feel sorry for ourselves thinking they're a good team and we're not. It's just what's our next job'? What's our next thing as a team?”
It is that mentality — moment by moment, job by job — that Wales hope will close the gap.
For Francis, the Principality Stadium remains sacred ground. Few venues stir him like it.
“Every time you get a chance to play there and that anthem goes - there’s not many places in the world in rugby that has that connection and atmosphere.”
Francis has experienced Grand Slams and World Cup campaigns. He understands the difference between a side riding a wave of belief and one searching for it.
“Back then did we play the best rugby? Probably not. We played winning rugby and there was a confidence of a team,” he says.
“We have to accelerate quicker than everyone else… That’s exciting, isn’t it? To have that chance, the potential of this group, it’s an exciting environment to be in.”
Sunday offers another chapter in that journey — against a nation whose rugby culture he has come to appreciate from the inside.
The champagne may be gone, replaced by the warm bitter of a rebuilding Wales side, but Francis is ready to drink it all in.
