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New venues confirmed for France's 2024 Six Nations campaign
By Josh Raisey
The three venues for France’s home fixtures in the 2024 Guinness Six Nations have been confirmed, with Marseille, Lille and Lyon being the chosen destinations.
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With the 2024 Summer Olympics being staged in Paris next year, largely at the Stade de France, Les Bleus’ are moving away from their traditional home for the first time in Six Nations history.
They will kick off the entire Championship against Grand Slam winners Ireland at Marseille’s Orange Velodrome on Friday February 2. After a trip to Scotland in round two, they will return to home soil for their round three clash with Italy, this time at Lille’s Decathlon Arena. Another away trip to Wales follows that, before France host England in the final match of the Championship at the Groupama Stadium in Lyon.
All three stadiums are primarily used for football, but they are all host venues for the upcoming World Cup in France.
Marseille’s 67,000 capacity Stade Velodrome will be hosting four pool stage matches at the World Cup (England versus Argentina, South Africa versus Scotland, France versus Namibia and South Africa versus Tonga) as well as two quarter-finals. France also hosted South Africa in Marseille last autumn, where the atmosphere was no less rapturous than it usually is in Paris.
Lille’s 50,000 capacity Decathlon Arena has five pool stages matches (France versus Uruguay, England versus Chile, Scotland versus Romania, England versus Samoa and Tonga versus Romania), while Lyon’s 59,000 capacity Groupama Stadium will also have five pool stage matches (Wales versus Australia, Uruguay versus Namibia, the All Blacks versus Italy, the All Blacks versus Uruguay and France versus Italy).
France last lost at the Stade de France in the Six Nations in 2021 against Scotland, albeit in an empty stadium. It was the opening round of the 2019 Championship that they last lost in front of a capacity crowd, meaning they will be losing a mini-fortress next year.
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Good to see a dominant, aggressive, physical all black performance from the forwards which set a good platform to work off, this Italy team have been a good 5 nations performer in 2023 and they struggled to get any kind of game plan going, they were destroyed. In the quarters the all blacks vs Irish game will be head turning, if this team can maintain their physicality, discipline and consistency they will compete strongly, hold your bets
Go to commentsToo often the tight 4, props & locks, are undervalued in these rankings with hookers, backrowers, & backs getting the chocolates. For example, to give ALB a 7 for 20mins while giving 6s & below to props & locks, is just plain rubbish. Why the hell do you think we were 68-10 up by the time the bench came on? I mean, when we lose who gets the blame? You got it, props & locks.
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