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France set up Grand Slam decider with England after win over Wales
France sealed a 40-0 win over Wales at Cardiff Arms Park to make their final-round clash with old foes England a Grand Slam decider on home soil.
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At the end of round four, only a point separates England and France at the top of the table.
First-half tries from Annaelle Deshayes, Joanna Grisez, and Romane Menager gave the visitors a 19-0 lead at the break before Gabrielle Vernier added the bonus-point score early in the second half.
Manae Feleu scored the fifth try for the visitors in the 58th minute, and Grisez rounded off the match with her second try of the afternoon.
Anne-Cecile Ciofani was shown a yellow card in the second minute of the match for making head contact in a tackle on Gwenllian Pyrs, but France regrouped to score the opening try through prop Deshayes after a quickly taken lineout from Pauline Bourdon Sansus.
In Wales’s first real opportunity in the 22, France turned the tables to score their second as Grisez sped away solo with a stunning 95-metre interception, converted by Lina Queyroi to make the score 14-0 to Les Bleues after 17 minutes.
JOANNA GRISEZ ⚡️
L’ailière de @FranceRugby fait parler sa vitesse sur cette interception salvatrice 🤯
📺 @FranceTV#GALFRA | #SixNationsRugby pic.twitter.com/eyuSAyNPkm
— Six Nations (FR) (@SixNations_FR) April 21, 2024
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The French back row combined with flare to score their third try, as Teano Feleu picked up the ball from the back of the scrum and went running into space, with Menager alongside her in support. Feleu escaped a tackle before she released the pass to Menager, who dotted down for a well-worked score. The conversion attempt strayed wide, but France took a 19-0 lead into half-time.
Despite the scoreline at the break, Wales had held 69% possession and territory in the first half, carried 78 times to France’s 27, and made 25 tackles to France’s 97. The ruthlessness of the French defence however denied Ioan Cunningham’s side any opportunities to covert the statistics into points.
France added the bonus point in the 45th minute with a perfect pass from Bourdon Sansus setting up Vernier to dart ten metres to score under the posts, converted easily by Queyroi.
Despite Wales initially holding France up, the fifth try soon followed in the second wave of attack when captain Manae Feleu carried hard across the line, again converted by Queyroi.
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A second yellow card for France was shown in the 63rd minute, this time to prop Assia Khalfaoui for head contact.
Grisez scored the final try of the afternoon as she collected a loose pass from Wales and did the damage in the red zone. Morgane Bourgeois had the final word as she added the conversion to take their points tally up to 40.
The result means that Wales will not be able to replicate their third-place finish from the year prior in this year’s Women’s Six Nations, losing a place in 2024’s WXV 1 in the process.
France, who were already confirmed to finish in the top two before the match against Wales, will face England on 27th April in a Grand Slam decider in Bordeaux. They have already secured their space in the top level of WXV, to be played in Canada in September and October this year.
England and France, as well as the yet-to-be-confirmed third-place team in the Women’s Six Nations, will join the top three teams from the Pacific Four Series in WXV 1.
The all-important Six Nations third place, which holds both Rugby World Cup 2025 and WXV 1 (2024) qualification, will remain in the balance until the final day of the tournament.
Post-match thoughts from @FranceRugby 🤩 pic.twitter.com/XowLF5m4jm
— Guinness Women's Six Nations (@Womens6Nations) April 21, 2024
Ireland vs Scotland looks to be the match that will decide the third place, with Scotland currently occupying the space with eight points after a historic first win in Italy, and Ireland in fifth with six points.
Italy, who will face a winless Welsh side on ‘Super Saturday’ and are currently fourth (six points) could take third place if they secure a bonus-point win against Wales, and if Ireland vs. Scotland ends in a draw without any bonus points for Scotland.
The teams who finish fourth and fifth in the Women’s Six Nations will compete in WXV 2, won last year by Scotland and held in South Africa for a second year.
The sixth-placed team at the end of the Six Nations will enter into a playoff with Spain, the winners of the Rugby Europe Championship, to determine whether they will be placed in WXV 2, or WXV 3, which was won by Ireland in 2024.
For the Six Nations teams who missed out on the RWC2025 qualification, a further six places are available at WXV for the highest-finishing teams who are yet to have secured their place.
Comments on RugbyPass
My heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
71 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
71 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
5 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
9 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to commentsRugbyPass writers are useless! you guys should get a real job because you all suck at writing about rugby!!!
9 Go to comments