eople have been getting very excited about France lately, and particularly about their young half-backs, Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack. A couple of years ago, the latter went so far as to be picked at fly-half for France while still in his teens. Impressive. But by then that was old hat, because the year before, in the opening match of the 2018 Six Nations, Matthieu Jalibert became the first teenager to start at fly-half in the championship since Neil Jenkins did so for Wales in 1991 (and only the second since 1968). Alas, Jalibert’s much-heralded debut lasted but half an hour, struck down by a knee injury, only for Ntamack, six months his junior, to assume the mantle of teenage playmaker the following season. Now an injury to Ntamack affords Jalibert, at a relatively mature 22, another chance to assert himself from the start of a Six Nations campaign. There is no less reason to be excited about it than the first time round. In the interim, Ntamack has proven himself brilliant and mature in almost equal measure. Against Jalibert’s own Bordeaux-Bègles, he broke his jaw a couple of days after Christmas, so now it is Jalibert’s turn to show his self-evident brilliance can be allied to international-class maturity. Jalibert was put out of the game for a year and a half by that injury against Ireland on his debut, but he has recovered to spend last year’s championship as Ntamack’s understudy. Meanwhile, his understudy in Rome will be Louis Carbonel of Toulon, also 22. France are blessed with swaggering young playmakers, if nothing else. But for global prominence none can quite rival the maestro at scrum-half, Dupont. Virtually every week, a new clip of his brilliance is circulated on social media. For a year or so, we thought the man who is his understudy now was going to be “it” for the foreseeable. Baptiste Serin is a relatively stately 26 these days but, if anything should happen to Dupont, France will lose little in the way of menace from the base. This is why, allied to the usual athletes of requisite threat for their respective positions elsewhere, France are being fancied much more than of late, all the way to the 2023 World Cup, of which they will be the hosts. They are second favourites for this Six Nations, behind England. This year it is their turn to have only two home games. That said, will home advantage count for so much in these sterilised, empty stadiums? Certainly, as away assignments go, a trip to Rome, with or without a crowd, is a reasonable lot to draw for a campaign opener. If we think France are unafraid of youth, Italy have strode up and punched it in the face. They have even younger half-backs, including another teenager making his championship debut. No one in their squad is over the age of 30, and only one in the starting XV breaches the same mark for caps won – and he, Luca Bigi, the hooker, has 32. One other – Sebastian Negri – has 28. None of the rest of the team has reached the teens. No one in the back division is in double figures. Italy are not the hardest of beats at the best of times. Now they seem to be taking desperation to new extremes. But why not? Whatever they have been doing in their first 21 years in the Six Nations, it hasn’t worked. And their answers to France on the youthful playmaker front really are as exciting as any since the longed-for days of Alessandro Troncon and Diego Dominguez. Gloucester’s Stephen Varney is that teenage debutant. His mother is Italian, his pace and derring-do practically French. Last season he was in the Italy Under-20 team that won in the country of his birth, Wales, alongside his partner this weekend, Paolo Garbisi. Italy are really excited about Garbisi, just 20 but a fly-half of, well, brilliance and maturity. France will surely win, but in an empty stadium it is to be hoped that normal pressure levels are released. Perhaps we might see a flourishing of youthful playmakers all round.