Nations Championship: the real game time of Galthié’s 42, from the overworked to the gamble

On 4 July in Christchurch, France will open the first edition of the Nations Championship without their Top 14 finalists, held back by the final on 27 June. Galthié named 33 players first, then nine reinforcements. To understand who is really travelling, we measured the game time of each of the 42 names this season: club minutes (Top 14 + European Cup) and minutes in the France jersey (Six Nations + autumn tests). Cross-referencing the two tells the story of two distinct populations.

Why 33 first, then nine

Galthié can call up as many as 42 players; he is doing it in two stages. The 33 selected flew out to Australia on Tuesday evening. The final nine — six from Toulouse, three from Montpellier — will join the group after the final, for Australia (11 July) then Japan (18 July). “I have always tried to put out the best possible team”, the head coach said of the fixture list’s “constraints”: the FFR-LNR agreement bars the finalists from playing a test six days after the final.

Seventeen of the travelling party without a single international minute

That is the clearest lesson from our data: seventeen of the 33 players sent to face the All Blacks have not played a minute for France this season. Mathis Ferté (Toulon), the most used man in the whole squad with 2,021 club minutes, has never been capped. The same goes for Boris Palu, Antoine Hastoy, Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, Théo Forner and Barnabé Massa. This first test is their audition.

The already-launched: Attissogbe, Jegou, Depoortere

Conversely, a few young players have already staked their claim. At 21, Théo Attissogbe played the whole of the Six Nations (400 minutes, five matches) and scored five tries. Oscar Jegou has the most minutes for France of the 33 travelling (473, across the Six Nations and the tests), and Nicolas Depoortere scored four tries in the autumn tests. It is they, more than the newcomers, who are confirming their status.

The Dupont case: little club rugby, but the entire Six Nations

Antoine Dupont illustrates the limits of reading club minutes alone. His season at Toulouse has been cut short (823 minutes, four Top 14 starts), but he played the whole of the Six Nations (359 minutes). At international level, then, he is anything but underused: it is at club level that his game time has melted away. Peato Mauvaka (667 minutes in all) is coming off a disjointed campaign.

A young test bench with a heavy Bordeaux accent

The average age of the 33 travelling is 25.5, from Fabien Brau-Boirie (20, already 1,702 club minutes at Pau) to Jefferson Poirot (33). Above all, twelve of the 33 play for Union Bordeaux-Bègles, double European champions: the half-back pairing for the first test will be 100% UBB (Lucu-Jalibert), as will the expected centre partnership (Moefana-Depoortere). The armband has gone to Maxime Lucu: “It is gratifying on a personal level”, the scrum-half said.

The game time of the 33 travelling (to face the All Blacks)

The nine finalists expected (Australia / Japan)

Methodology

Club minutes reconstructed from on/off events (Top 14 + European Cup, 2025-26 season, before the final on 27 June). France minutes taken from the season’s matches held in our database (2026 Six Nations + 2025 autumn tests): a match-by-match breakdown is available for the Six Nations, a season total for the tests. Season total = club + France.