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Bruising France and Springboks encounter takes toll as injuries pile up

Damian De Allende #12 of South Africa is tackled by Baptiste Erdocio #1 of France and Regis Montagne #3 of France during the Autumn Nations Series 2025 match beetween France and South Africa at Stade de France on November 8, 2025 in Paris, France. (Photo by Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images)
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The physical nature of the Quilter Nations Series encounter between France and South Africa on Saturday has taken its toll, with Fabien Galthie losing his second starter from the defeat.

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A day after France confirmed that No.8 Mickaël Guillard had withdrawn from the squad with Pierre Bochaton taking his place, loosehead prop Baptiste Erdocio has also been replaced in the squad by Dany Priso.

The Montpellier prop has picked up a knee injury, although he was originally named in the squad that will prepare to take on Fiji this weekend, suggesting the injury may have come in training.

These are just the latest additions to what is an ever-increasing injury list for Les Bleus, with several superstars members of that list.

South Africa, meanwhile, have escaped from the contest unscathed, though they wait to hear the outcome of Lood de Jager’s hearing following his red card.

Fixture
Internationals
France
34 - 21
Full-time
Fiji
All Stats and Data

“We have a lot of sore bodies, so recovery has been massive for us, but we have no injury concerns,” said assistant coach Tony Brown.

“Obviously, Lood has to go through a hearing, so we won’t find out if he’s available for selection until after that.”

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Updated France squad
Forwards
Dorian Aldegheri (Toulouse)
Grégory Alldritt (La Rochelle)
Hugo Auradou (Pau)
Pierre Bochaton (Bordeaux-Bègles)
Paul Boudehent (La Rochelle)
Esteban Capilla (Bayonne)
Guillaume Cramont (Toulouse)
Thibaud Flament (Toulouse)
Jean-Baptiste Gros (Toulon)
Oscar Jegou (La Rochelle)
Anthony Jelonch (Toulouse)
Thomas Laclayat (Pau)
Maxime Lamothe (Bordeaux-Bègles)
Julien Marchand (Toulouse)
Jimi Maximin (Pau)
Emmanuel Meafou (Toulouse)
Régis Montagne (Clermont)
Rodrigue Neti (Toulouse)
Charles Ollivon (Toulon)
Dany Priso (Toulon)
Emerick Setiano (Bayonne)
Romain Taofifenua (Racing 92)
Cameron Woki (Bordeaux-Bègles)

Backs
Grégoire Arfeuil (Pau)
Pierre-Louis Barassi (Toulouse)
Louis Bielle-Biarrey (Bordeaux-Bègles)
Fabien Brau-Boirie (Pau)
Théo Chabouni (Castres)
Nicolas Depoortere (Bordeaux-Bègles)
Gaël Drean (Toulon)
Gaël Fickou (Racing 92)
Emilien Gailleton (Pau)
Aaron Grandidier Nkanang (Pau)
Baptiste Jauneau (Clermont)
Nolann Le Garrec (La Rochelle)
Maxime Lucu (Bordeaux-Bègles)
Romain Ntamack (Toulouse)
Damian Penaud (Bordeaux-Bègles)
Thomas Ramos (Toulouse)
Joris Segonds (Bayonne)
Ugo Seunes (Racing 92)
Cheick Tiberghien (Bayonne)

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3 Comments
D
Dries la Grange 205 days ago

The ban just proves and confirms again that South African players will always be treated on the letter to the word interpretation whilst especially some European players will always receive the double standards treatment of World Rugby

B
Ben 204 days ago

Time for another coach revolt.

S
SB 206 days ago

Excited to see the return to the French team for Ollivon. Interested to see if Neti or Priso gets selected to be on the bench, you’d assume it’s the former as he has been in camp longer. Think Lamothe deserves his debut.

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cnw 32 minutes ago
France has conquered and reconquered Europe. Can it reach its Mount Everest?

It’s mind boggling that the best are not playing the best in July! Though the commercial reality bites here. On the B/C/D I think the issue is one of communicating ideas. You point out that in reality the majority of the players were third or fourth choice or perhaps worse. And the way you explained it as someone who clearly knows the French comp that makes sense. So I accept that it was perhaps a third or fourth choice team overall. I should be clear though I think that the quality of the team exceeded the sum of its parts. And I think a D grade is way too low. Their performance was too good to get such a grade. And I think that reflects that they are very good players who had a good chance to build combinations. Would the first choice players have played better - very likely. But that does not diminish the performance of the boys that played.

Put another way, I understand that the French team that played the Boks had a good number of first choice players in stark contrast to the teams that played in NZ. But they did not perform like an “A” team - clearly they had only got together just before that game. They started well but the lack of match readiness showed in the second half. In contrast the Boks had both their first choice team that was a battle hardened unit - and they played their A game, as they did against the ABs first choice team in Wellington. In contrast the first choice ABs beat the then first choice Boks in Auckland - it was the best performance all year by the ABs - it was an A grade performance (the Bok dominance in the forwards notwithstanding).



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