Saint-Andre wields the guillotine on Cardiff ‘cry babies’ for visit to Murrayfield

Events in Murrayfield tomorrow and Twickenham on Sunday could yet have a major bearing on whether Ireland can keep their noses in front of their three main rivals in this season's intriguing Six Nations. And, with the Stade de France finale looming on Saturday week, events in the madcap world of Les Bleus are particularly hard to ignore.

In time-honoured French fashion Philippe Saint-Andre yesterday wielded the guillotine, making seven changes from the team that lost 27-6 to Wales for their meeting with a rejuvenated Scotland tomorrow and also sayingsome of his players had been "cry babies" in Cardiff.

Wesley Fofana, Yannick Nyanga and Dmitri Szarzewski (as well as his understudy Benjamin Kayser) are all injured, and are replaced by Maxime Mermoz, Sébastian Vahaamahina and Brice Mach, while Louis Picamoles has been internally suspended for sarcastically applauding referee Alain Rolland, so Damien Chouly is restored.

Dropped
However, he has also dropped Wenceslas Lauret, Jean-Marc Doussain and the gifted Hugo Bonneval, who did little wrong, with Alexandre Lapandry, Maxime Machenaud and Maxime Medard recalled. While retaining the 22-year-old Jules Plisson, who looks some way short of a Test standard outhalf, Saint-Andre's most eye-raising call is to start the 6' 8" (2.03m), 19st 11lbs (125kg) Vahaamahina at flanker.

The Clermont-bound, 22-year-old from New Caledonia, has made the vast majority of his 23 Top 14 starts at lock, and his only experience of playing in the back-row at flanker for France was for ten minutes on his debut against Australia in November 2012. Since then, his ensuing ten caps (all bar three off the bench) have all been in his customary role of lock. 'Vahaamahina flanker!' screamed the headline in l'Equipe online yesterday in apparent disbelief, and described this selection as a " grosse surprise ".

Cry babies
"We had too many cry babies [in Cardiff], too many players who spoke and made things difficult for the captain Pascal Pape," said Saint-Anbdre. "On Saturday, Pascal will be allowed to speak to the referee but the other 14 must work for the team and maintain their self-control."

Heaven knows how many changes there will be next week, and heaven knows what’s the best outcome from an Irish viewpoint in Edinburgh. A defeat and angry fall-out, prompting another re-jigged team – with, say, Picamoles, Morgan Parra and Remi Tales restored at eight, nine and ten, and a specialist blindside – along with a desperate desire for redemption against a title-seeking Ireland might conceivably be more alarming than a scratchy win to keep them in touch and thereby retain much of this line-up. But who knows.

FRANCE (v Scotland, Murrayfield, Saturday): B Dulin (Castres); Y Huget (Toulouse), M Bastareaud (Toulon), M Mermoz (Toulon), M Medard (Toulouse); J Plisson (Stade Francais), M Machenaud (Racing Metro); T Domingo (Clermont Auvergne), B Mach (Castres), N Mas (Montpellier), Y Maestri (Toulouse), P Pape (Stade Francais, capt), S Vahaamahina (Perpignan), A Lapandry (Clermont Auvergne), D Chouly (Clermont Auvergne). Replacements: G Guirado (Perpignan), V Debaty (Clermont Auvergne), R Slimani (Stade Francais), A Flanquart (Stade Francais), A Claassen (Castres), J-M Doussain (Toulouse), R Tales (Castres), G Fickou (Toulouse).