IF LAST SATURDAY was a sign of what’s to come with the Nations Championship, the new tournament won’t be long gaining a dedicated audience.

Even with a host of the game’s most marketable names missing – Anotine Dupont, Romain Ntamack, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Maro Itoje, Caelan Doris and Mack Hansen to name but a few – the opening round gave us highly entertaining games, fully worthy of your attention even on such a stacked sporting weekend.

Tomorrow’s slate might be a harder sell to the floating viewer as many coaches shift their approach, rotating their selections for fixtures which across the board, largely, feel easier to predict.

After coming up short in a thrilling battle with the All Blacks, Fabien Galthié has shaken up his France team to play Australia.

There are seven changes to the starting team, but the most notable move is the decision to start Matthieu Jalibert at fullback, as Toulouse star Ntamack returns at 10. The idea arose once Max Spring, the starting 15 last weekend, pulled out with injury. Jalibert last started a game at 15 against Pau in 2021.

“I promised Matthieu the first Test match and Romain the second,” Galthié told reporters this week. ”They were promises, so I’m keeping them.”

The combination teases all sorts of delightful play-making possibilities. 

“In our system, we play as much with two fly-halves as with two full-backs,” Galthié added. “What works well with Thomas Ramos, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work with Matthieu Jalibert.”

It’s a tantalising prospect, so fingers crossed Jalibert is fit to play, with Antoine Hastoy on standby should the Bordeaux man’s calf issue flare up before kick-off. Up front, the French pack is bolstered by the return of the Toulouse and Montpellier players who featured in the Top 14 final.

Fresh from running Ireland close in Sydney, there are some interesting calls in the Australia team.

With Carter Gordon and Ben Dolandson both ruled out, Declan Meredith starts at 10 on his Test debut, while Tom Wright gets the nod at fullback.

Declan Meredith starts at 10 for the Wallabies. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

And we think we have a head-scratching out-half debate. A year out from the World Cup, Wallabies fans will be hoping to see their out-half merry-go-round settle down, with a combination of injuries/form meaning that more often than not, Schmidt’s rotated one of his team’s key positions between games over the past year.

It’s a rapid rise for Meredith (26), with the Brumbies man only called into his first Australia squad three weeks ago. Jock Campbell, who started at 15 against Ireland, will cover out-half from the bench having never started a professional game at 10. 

It’s another tough test for an Australian side who have won only one of their previous nine fixtures (v Japan October 2025), and are on a seven-game losing run against Northern Hemisphere sides. They desperately need to generate some momentum if they are to make the most of their home World Cup.

“We thought last weekend we had plenty of opportunities to ice that game (v Ireland), and we didn’t,” said captain Harry Wilson.

“No team can sit there saying, ‘we’re happy being close and improving’. Ultimately we need wins.”

England are another side desperately seeking to get back to winning ways, with Saturday’s bruising loss to the Springboks their sixth straight defeat since the opening Six Nations victory over Wales.

Steve Borthwick's England need a win. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

And so, Steve Borthwick continues to feel the heat, fielding questions about his future again this week in the lead-up to tomorrow’s meeting with Fiji.

England’s sense of need is reflected in Borthwick’s selection. At one point in his planning this fixture was marked as a potential window to test squad depth. Instead, the England boss has gone full strength and resisted the opportunity to throw in some fresh faces. 

The good news for England is that they are back on home soil, with Fiji playing this ‘home’ fixture at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium.

The bad news is that a Fiji side who in typically Fijian fashion, delivered magic moments in patches against Wales (hitting double digits for clean breaks before the end of the first half), have welcomed back talented out-half Caleb Muntz in a side which is arguably stronger than last weeks’ – even allowing for the injured Semi Radradra.

Fiji's Caleb Muntz. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

Wales’s 39-24 win handed Steve Tandy’s men a rare away win. Well, sort of. When enough years have passed Welsh journalists will have fun picking through the day Wales won ‘away’ in Cardiff.

This weekend the Welsh have a proper away trip to face Argentina in San Juan, where they will aim to get the same massive returns from their scrum and maul. Their most recent meeting (Cardiff 2025) saw Argentina claim a record 52-28 win in what was Tandy’s first game in charge.

Felipe Contepomi’s team looked a little rusty in their 47-38 loss to Scotland, which is perhaps to be expected from a side playing their first Test in eight months. Expect the Pumas to smooth out the edges as the weeks progress. 

Scotland’s seven-try win in Córdoba pushed them up to fifth in the world rankings, equalling their best-ever standing.

There was much to like about the Scots’ assured, clinical performance, where they scored seven times from nine visits to the Argentina 22.

Yet as ever, the mission for Scotland is to build consistency, and now they need to back it up against Rassie Erasmus’ mighty South Africa at Loftus Versfeld. No easy task – the Springboks have won nine straight Tests against the Scots, a record stretching back to 2010, and remarkably, this is Scotland’s first visit to South Africa since 2014.

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Having steamrolled England in round one, Erasmus is using this game to look at his squad options, retaining just five of the starting XV from last week. The back-to-back world champions remain the team to catch and are motoring nicely ahead of their blockbuster four-Test series against the All Blacks across August and September.

It’s early days under new head coach Dave Rennie, but there was much to like about New Zealand’s opening win against France.

The decision to pair Hurricane’s half-backs Cam Roigard and Ruben Love at nine and 10 paid off, with Love (making his first start at out-half) fitting in nicely alongside the more experienced scrum-half, who ran the show in a player of the match display.

Cam Roigard was brilliant for the All Blacks last weekend. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

All Blacks fans wanted to see more flair and spark in their team following the frustrations of the Scott Robertson era, and against Les Bleus they got just that, New Zealand kicking less and looking to play a high-tempo attacking game. Love suits that style and with Damien McKenzie at fullback, the All Blacks boasted an array of play-making talent in their backline.

This week, Rennie has kept his chief playmakers in place as Beauden Barrett is once again left out of the 23. The spine of the side that beat France remains, with five changes to the starting 15, but Cortez Ratima is the only player retained on the bench, as winger/fullback Josh Moorby and flanker Anton Segner are set to debut off the bench.

Overall, it’s a selection that looks to build momentum and cohesion heading into the massive round three meeting with Ireland, and looks an ominous task for an Italy side who fell to defeat in Japan last Saturday. Across 19 meetings, Italy’s average losing margin to New Zealand is 43.7 points.

New Zealand’s crunch Eden Park game against Andy Farrell’s side will give us a clearer indication of where the two teams currently stand, but this weekend is all about new combinations and fresher faces getting opportunities to shine.