The France team vs Australia carries one selection that nobody saw coming: Matthieu Jalibert at full-back. Fabien Galthié has made seven changes for Saturday’s Nations Championship clash with the Wallabies at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, and the boldest of them shifts the Bordeaux playmaker into a position he has never started in for his country.
Romain Ntamack returns at fly-half, meaning Galthié gets both of his creative conductors on the field at once — provided Jalibert’s calf allows it. France arrive in Brisbane stinging from an agonising 34-32 defeat to the All Blacks in Christchurch, and the response has been sweeping: five of the seven players drafted in featured in last month’s Top 14 final between Toulouse and Montpellier.
Why has Galthié moved Jalibert to full-back?
The simplest answer is that France’s two best tens are finally being picked together. Jalibert has worn 15 only four times in his club career, the last of them in March 2021, according to AFP, and has never been named there in a France starting side. But with record try-scorer Damian Penaud injured in Christchurch and already back in France, Galthié has chosen to solve his back-three problem with a second distributor rather than a like-for-like wing. A twin-playmaker axis of Ntamack and Jalibert gives France two kicking games, two passing ranges and a counter-attacking threat the Wallabies cannot easily map.
Will Jalibert actually be fit to play?
This is the selection’s asterisk. Jalibert picked up a calf contusion on the final action of the New Zealand defeat and has missed training this week. “He’ll have a full test tomorrow during the captain’s run at the stadium,” Galthié said, as reported by AFP. “Then we’ll make the decision based on how he feels.” Should he fail that test, La Rochelle’s Antoine Hastoy — who has trained at full-back this week — is on standby to step straight in.
What do the Top 14 finalists change up front?
Plenty. Hooker Peato Mauvaka, who scored twice in the final, comes into the front row, while the second row is entirely new: Toulouse giant Emmanuel Meafou is paired with Montpellier’s Florian Verhaeghe, back in a France shirt three years after his last cap. Montpellier flanker Lenni Nouchi joins the back row, and Maxime Lucu captains the side from scrum-half. Two debutants complete the picture — Stade Français loosehead Moses Alo-Emile, who was born in Brisbane to Samoan parents before moving to Paris at 18, and Pau wing Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, an Olympic sevens champion from Paris 2024. A homecoming debut and a sevens gold medallist on the wing is the kind of story this fixture deserves.
How does this France side match up against the Wallabies?
Australia have selection intrigue of their own, with Declan Meredith handed a debut at fly-half as the hosts reshuffle their halves. That makes Saturday a meeting of a debutant ten and a repurposed one — and it tilts the experience balance towards France, even with a heavily rotated pack. The Six Nations champions have lost nothing in ambition since Christchurch, and the Meafou-Verhaeghe combination is a direct answer to Australia’s lineout threat.
The verdict: this is Galthié at his most daring, and it is a gamble France can afford. If Jalibert’s calf passes Friday’s test, the double-playmaker experiment gets its audition on the biggest stage available; if it fails, Hastoy makes the change nearly seamless. Either way, a France side carrying this much Top 14 final pedigree should have too much control for a Wallabies team blooding a debutant at ten.
