The Southern Africans have struggled in their opening two games suffering big defeats at the hands of Italy and New Zealand. Their points differential could well be in for another hammering this Thursday as the French will be on the hunt for points.
France v Namibia
Thursday 22 September
Stade Velodrome
France 1/150 | Draw 66/1 | Namibia 10/1
A much-changed French outfit survived a near scare last Thursday as they were run extremely close by a fired-up Uruguayan outfit. Le Bleu were in real danger of being on the end of the tournament’s first shock result with the scores at 13-13 in favour of the tournament hosts with only 25 minutes left in the fixture.
A strange charged-down try would give the French an eight-point cushion and then on the 72-minute mark, they would put the game to bed with a try from winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey putting the game to bed.
While France managed to grab their second win of the campaign, Namibia suffered a second big defeat as they went down 71-3 to New Zealand. The Southern Africans were spirited in defeat but they coughed up loads of ball through handling errors and also missed numerous opportunities to score tries.
To make things worse for the Namibians, they lost centre Le Roux Malan with a suspected broken leg, which will rule him out of the tournament.
I suspect France will throw out a stronger side here having failed to claim a bonus point from their first two games.
Verdict: France (-65.5) 17/20
