Wales vs. France Rugby World Cup Match Preview: Welsh looking to avenge nightmare of Auckland

Wales are at full strength for the quarter final encounter with France on Sunday.

Unbeaten throughout Pool D and having already overcome a resolute Australia, Gatland’s side could well be the dark horses of the tournament and at 10/1 they provide excellent value.

France too are unbeaten and head into Sunday’s clash with an extra week of rest under their belts after Typhoon Hagibis caused last weekend’s Pool C decider with England to be called off. Some say rest equals rust in tournament rugby, but France have hardly been tearing up any trees failing to cover the spread in all three pool games. They beat both Argentina and Tonga by just two points and were pretty ordinary against novices USA.

After the infamous nightmare of Auckland, where Wales lost 9-8 to France in the semifinals of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, they’ve since won seven of their eight meetings with Les Bleus.

France have struggled against the Welsh in recent years averaging just 11.67 points per game in their last nine meetings, failing to record more than 20 points on each occasion. Wales are 19/20 to score the most tries.

Dan Biggar, Jonathon Davies and George North could all return for Wales, while France will be sweating on the fitness of duo Damian Penaud and Antoine Dupont.

With five tries Josh Adams is the joint leading top try scorer and he’s 8/1 to go over whitewash first.

Games between these two sides are usually pretty close encounters, so France +10 on the handicap wouldn’t be the worst bet in the world.

Wales are as short as 2/5 to reach the semi final and it will be quite a shock if they don’t. France are 13/5 to pull off an upset.