Five French players ruled out due to Covid

FRANCE will be without at least five firstchoice players for Sunday’s Six Nations clash with Scotland in Paris as an outbreak of Covid-19 continues to disrupt their squad. Two more players — hooker Julien Marchand and centre Arthur Vincent — were found to have contracted the virus in the latest round of testing yesterday. They will now enter a period of selfisolation, with star scrum-half Antoine Dupont, prop Mohamed Haouas and winger Gabin Villiere also testing positive over the past few days.

All five players started in both of France’s opening victories over Italy and Ireland in this year’s championship and would have been in line to face the Scots at the Stade de France. They have all now been ruled out, however, after the French named a new training squad yesterday which featured a total of seven changes. Beyond the playing squad, France’s coaching staff have also been badly affected. Head coach Fabien Galthie tested positive last week.

So, too, have assistant coaches William Servat and Karim Ghezal along with another unnamed member of the backroom staff, leaving defence coach Shaun Edwards to lead training over the next few days leading into the match. The absence of Dupont, in particular, is a huge blow to the French. The Toulouse star is the reigning Six Nations player of the championship from last year and has again been in excellent form this time around. Meanwhile, Toulon prop Jean-Baptiste Gros and lock Swan Rebbadj have also been withdrawn after being identified as contact cases. Rebbadj still played in Toulon’s Top14 win at Pau on Saturday, despite being named as a suspected contact case by the French Federation. Both had been initially called-up for Sunday’s match against Scotland after missing out on the trip to Dublin. Neither will now make the trip to join up with the squad.

Early training at camp in Marcoussis will be led by Edwards, Laurent Labit, and Raphael Ibanez in the absence of Galthie, Servat and Ghezal.