A lot is riding on the final match of Pool A in Lyon. Host nation France will want to book their place in the quarter-finals with a perfect four wins from four pool phase matches.
Maxime Lucu starts for France at scrum-half in place of injured captain Antoine Dupont, Grégory Alldritt returns to the back-row for François Cros, and Louis Bielle-Biarrey gets the nod over Gabin Villiere on the left wing. Charles Ollivon captains, in Dupont’s absence, for the first time since the French tour of Japan in July 2022 – while club duo Lucu and fly-half Matthieu Jalibert start together at the hinge for the first time since the same tour.
France head coach Fabien Galthi said France is where they want to be in their preparation for the world cup: We have a preparation plan based on the number of weeks since July 1. It’s a 14-week plan, and we’re in week 14. The competition is now a knockout, and we have choices to make. This is our eighth match since August, and we’re where we wanted to be. But the answer will be given on the pitch on Friday."
Italy, who have quarter-final ambitions of their own despite last week’s big defeat by New Zealand, will want to spoil those plans. For the Azzurri, the equation is simple: a win by seven points or more will extend Kieran Crowley’s spell in charge by one more match.
Crowley has made five personnel changes and three positional switches to his starting XV from the team who lost 96-17 last time out. Simone Ferrari, in his 50th test, Epalahame Faiva and Pietro Ceccarelli form a new-look front row, while Niccolò Cannone returns to the second row to partner Federico Ruzza.
Tommaso Allan moves back to fly-half after starting at full-back against the All Blacks, Paolo Garbisi returns to inside centre, and Ange Capuozzo switches to full-back after playing three of his past four tests on the right wing.
Italy head coach Kieran Crowley admitted they lost the process and concentrated on the outcome: "If I look at last week, on reflection, on my behalf we lost the process. We looked more at the outcome rather than the process. That was a disappointing factor from my perspective. This week we have gone back to process. We said to the guys that one game doesn't define you, just like one bad article doesn't define a reporter, or one good article doesn't define you. It's exactly the same in sport, one bad performance doesn't define you. If you have three, four, five of them, then that defines you.
"We gave up 10 tries to set-plays, something like that, which is something we've never done before. Your confidence is knocked and how do you regain that? Well, by getting back to the process and having self-belief. And that's easy to say, we will see how we've done on Friday night."
Teams:
France: 1 Cyril Baille, 2 Peato Mauvaka, 3 Uini Atonio, 4 Cameron Woki, 5 Thibaud Flament, 6 Anthony Jelonch, 7 Charles Ollivon (c), 8 Grégory Alldritt, 9 Maxime Lucu, 10 Matthieu Jalibert, 11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey, 12 Jonathan Danty, 13 Gael Fickou, 14 Damian Penaud, 15 Thomas Ramos. Replacements: 16 Pierre Bourgarit, 17 Reda Wardi, 18 Dorian Aldegheri, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Francois Cros, 21 Baptiste Couilloud, 22 Yoram Moefana, 23 Melvyn Jaminet.
Italy: 1 Simone Ferrari, 2 Hame Faiva, 3 Pietro Ceccarelli, 4 Niccolo Cannone, 5 Federico Ruzza, 6 Sebastian Negri, 7 Michele Lamaro (c), 8 Lorenzo Cannone, 9 Stephen Varney, 10 Tommaso Allan, 11 Montanna Ioane, 12 Paolo Garbisi, 13 Juan Ignacio Brex, 14 Pierre Bruno, 15 Ange Capuozzo. Replacements: 16 Marco Manfredi, 17 Federico Zani, 18 Marco Riccioni, 19 David Sisi, 20 Manuel Zuliani, 21 Alessandro Fusco, 22 Luca Morisi, 23 Lorenzo Pani.