• Champions League news, 5.45pm GMT start (first leg: 1-0)
• Live scores | Read Football Daily | And you can mail Scott

Speaking on TNT Sports, Steve McManaman suggests Benfica have good reason to be hopeful. “They will get a lot of the ball they way Barcelona play … they’re expansive … there’s always lots of space … [Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys] is not a hostile ground by far … it’s an early game in Spain … the fans will be trickling in 25 minutes after the game has started, the way they operate there … they’ve got a really good opportunity to do something, Benfica … this is not the normal 9pm kick-off in the Camp Nou … this is completely different.”

Benfica coach Bruno Lage talks to TNT Sports. “The big task for today is to try to repeat what we did in the last games against them … create chances … score goals … we have big confidence to be here and play our game … we try to forget the environment and focus on the things we can control … we have watched good things we did in both games … we know we will have opportunities to score … so will Barcelona … we know what needs to be done.”

Attack on Moscow as peace talks began was designed to reinforce Kyiv’s proposal for an air truce with Russia

Ukraine’s decision to launch a drone attack into Russia as the next phase of peace negotiations involving delegations from Washington and Kyiv began is a clear demonstration that its military capacity has not yet been significantly dented by Donald Trump’s decision to withhold military intelligence last week.

Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine had attacked with 337 drones, 91 of which were aimed at Moscow and the surrounding region. Three people were reported to have been killed, all four of the Russian capital’s airports had to be closed, and local air defences were not entirely effective in repelling the assault.

The wild child ‘gabber pop’ rapper was booted off last year’s song contest. But his song Europapa eclipsed the winner’s – and he’s about to tour the world in his gigantic shoulder pads

Joost Klein is arguably the first artist to triumph at the Eurovision song contest without actually performing in the final. In May last year, the 27-year-old Dutch wild child “gabber pop” rapper was disqualified from the world’s largest live music event just hours before he was due to perform Europapa to 170 million TV viewers around the globe.

This song – a chaotic but catchy ode to the father he lost as a teenager, and to the free movement of people ethos his father instilled in him – was touted as a favourite. But instead of gearing up for his big moment, Klein spent seven hours that day sitting in his changing room in a reflex-blue, Ursula-von-der-Leyen-meets-Vivienne-Westwood suit with gigantic shoulder pads, fearing he was about to be arrested – on live TV – over a “backstage incident” after the semi-final the previous evening. Swedish host broadcaster SVT filed a police complaint accusing Klein of “threatening behaviour” by pushing a female camera operator’s equipment. Entertainment careers have been cancelled for less.

SXSW film festival: The Oscar winner’s first film role for six years shows his undeniable magnetism but squanders it on a baggy mix of tones and genres

In the past six years, the Academy award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey, the reigning prince of Austin, Texas, has kept busy. He raised his three kids in the city, written and released a bestselling memoir on “easy-livin’” (“because life is a verb”), taught in the film department at the University of Texas at Austin, pleaded for gun control at the White House after the horrific school shooting in his home town of Uvalde and “seriously considered” running for governor of Texas. But he has not acted on screen – relegating his last two film roles, underwhelming romps in Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum and Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen, to the distant memory of a pre-pandemic 2019. With the end of the 2010s, the energy of the McConnaissance went elsewhere.

That is, until Monday, when McConaughey returned to red carpet promotional duties for the premiere of The Rivals of Amziah King, his first film role in six years, to a very friendly hometown crowd at SXSW. Atypically for a non-director, McConaughey introduced the movie himself with typical folksiness, in a stump speech worthy of someone still mulling a run for political office. “I thought I’d been busy,” he said as explanation for his absence from the screen. But the writer-director Andrew Patterson courted him back to acting with this “love story of a whole bunch of misfits and underdogs coming together”.

The Rivals of Amziah King is screening at the SXSW film festival and will be released at a later date

Since pontiff was hospitalised conspiracy theories have swirled online claiming he has died

While Pope Francis was being treated for double pneumonia, Italian TikToker Ottavo made his way unchallenged into a ward at Gemelli hospital in Rome, followed by a camera. His aim was to bolster a conspiracy theory circulating on social media for weeks: that the 88-year-old pontiff was dead “and the Vatican refuses to tell us”.

“There’s no security at all – nothing whatsoever,” he told his 10,000 followers in the video. “I would never have been able to get this far if he were there. For that reason, in my opinion, Pope Francis passed away.”

President makes statement in support of Musk’s ‘baby’ as company shares fall hard and owners sell vehicles

• US politics live – latest updates

Donald Trump has signaled he intends to buy a “brand new Tesla” and blamed “Radical Left Lunatics” for “illegally” boycotting Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company a day after Tesla suffered its worst share price fall in nearly five years.

Tesla’s shares fell hard on Monday as markets reacted to the threat of a recession and Trump’s tariff plans. Tesla’s slide came amid widespread protests over the billionaire Musk’s influence in the federal government at Tesla dealerships, a boycott campaign, car owners selling their Tesla vehicles, and activists pushing members of the public to sell Tesla shares.

One simple exercise proved older adults can build and retain muscle – and caused a paradigm shift in science

In 1988, 712 people lived at the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged, a Boston nursing home affectionately named “Hebrew rehab” by its residents and staff. The residents’ average age was 88, and three-quarters of them were women. Every resident had multiple medical conditions. Almost half required help to engage in the essential activities of daily life: getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, bathing, walking, eating. But they were survivors. Some had survived the Holocaust. Others fled the Cossacks. They all lived through the Great Depression.

They were ideal research subjects for Maria Fiatarone, a young doctor and faculty member in geriatric medicine at both Tufts and Harvard. In terrible shape, with lifetimes of practice overcoming great challenges: to Fiatarone, they were perfect.

Humberside police open criminal investigation after tanker and cargo ship collide, with crew member still missing

Police have launched a criminal investigation into the collision between two ships in the North Sea, with one man arrested, as experts voiced growing fears over the environmental impact of the crash.

A 59-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter after the search was called off for a sailor onboard the Solong cargo ship, which drifted ablaze off the coast of Yorkshire on Tuesday.

President cites Ontario’s recent imposition of 25% surcharge on electricity exports to US as reason for doubling duties

• US politics – live updates

Donald Trump has announced he is doubling tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% as a retaliation for the province of Ontario’s imposition of a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to several US states, in a dramatic escalation of the trade war between the two ostensibly allied countries.

“Based on Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% Tariff on ‘Electricity’ coming into the United States, I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to ad [sic] an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Former Barclays boss told Jeffrey Epstein suspicious withdrawals from his account were being investigated

The former bank boss Jes Staley pushed JP Morgan to keep Jeffrey Epstein as a client despite human trafficking concerns and told him suspicious withdrawals from his account were being investigated, a court has heard.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) put the allegations to the ex-chief executive of Barclays during his second day of witness testimony at the upper tribunal in London.

The Columbia University graduate’s arrest is an attempt to destroy free thinking while murdering due process

Forced disappearance, kidnapping, political imprisonment, take your pick. These terms all describe what has happened under the Trump administration’s first arrest for thought crimes, something that should never happen in a democracy.

But it has. To Mahmoud Khalil, a recently graduated master’s student from Columbia University’s school of international and public affairs. And for each minute that Khalil is held in detention, every one of us should feel like our own individual rights in this country are being shredded. The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil is a barefaced attempt by the Trump administration to destroy free thinking while murdering due process and free speech along the way. This is an ominous development.

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Tom Garry, and Robyn Cowen to discuss Gareth Taylor’s exit and the weekend’s games

On the podcast today: Manchester City part ways with Gareth Taylor just days before their League Cup final against Chelsea, with Nick Cushing stepping in as interim manager. What went wrong, and what does this mean for City’s season?

Elsewhere, Liverpool stun Arsenal to reach the FA Cup semi-finals, joining Chelsea, Manchester United, and Manchester City in the final four. Meanwhile, Liverpool’s Taylor Hinds was subjected to “sexually inappropriate comments” from a spectator. We break down all the action from the quarter-finals and discuss Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s latest eyebrow-raising comments on the Manchester United women’s team.

In addition to layoffs and hiring freezes, a ‘God squad’ can effectively veto ESA protections for endangered species

Donald Trump’s administration, backed by House Republicans and Elon Musk’s Doge agency, are carrying out an attack on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and federal wildlife agencies that, if successful, will almost certainly drive numerous species into extinction, environmental advocates warn.

The three-pronged attack is designed to freeze endangered wildlife protections to more quickly push through oil, gas and development projects, opponents say.

Baloch Liberation Army claims to have killed 20 soldiers after blowing up tracks in south-western Balochistan region

A separatist militant group in Pakistan’s south-western Balochistan province says it has taken 182 hostages including military personnel after hijacking a train, as the country’s security situation continues to decline sharply.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) blew up the tracks and fired on the Jaffar Express train as it travelled through a tunnel in a remote and mountainous area, bringing the train to a halt.

They won a Grammy, risked being shot in the US and were adored by Bob Marley. As they go on tour, the band look back on half a century of being a voice for the voiceless

In the late 1970s, whenever young Birmingham reggae band Steel Pulse performed their song Ku Klux Klan, the group’s vocalists would theatrically wear white KKK hoods onstage to illustrate the song’s lyrics, which excoriated the Klan’s violence, racism and cowardice. British audiences loved it and understood the power of a black band making such a striking visual statement, but in America it was different.

“American audiences were sort of dumbstruck and flabbergasted,” says lead singer David Hinds, now 68, remembering their first US visit, in 1981. “They told us they didn’t even know there were black people in England, let alone would do a song like Ku Klux Klan. In Boston a white guy jumped out of the audience and started a struggle onstage. In the end the police came and dragged him off. Our elderly African American T-shirt seller said he was scared for us every time we went onstage. He’d say ‘You don’t know America. This place is something else.’”

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

• Building and Wood Workers’ International makes claim
• Stadium in question is Azteca in Mexico City

Fifa has been accused of reneging on a commitment to ensure workers’ safety on World Cup projects by refusing inspectors access to observe conditions inside Mexico’s Azteca Stadium.

Representatives from the trade union the Building and Wood Workers’ International say they were told on Monday before a planned visit that they would not be allowed access to the 80,000-capacity venue, which is being renovated for the 2026 World Cup.

Anti-government rally in Belgrade this weekend billed as climax to months of unrest since Novi Sad tragedy last year

• Europe live – latest updates

Several hundred student protesters have blocked Serbia’s public television station building in Belgrade as tensions soar days before a large rally planned for the weekend that is billed as the climax of months of anti-government demonstrations.

The students, who first blocked the TV building in the capital’s city centre late on Monday, gathered again in their hundreds on Tuesday after announcing that their blockade would last for at least 22 hours. A similar blockade was organised in the country’s second-largest city, Novi Sad.

The cookbook designer and former owner of Shop Ate Cafe & Store on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula shares his seasonal, Australian take on his Sicilian heritage

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

Many of my favourite recipes come from Sunday pranzo (lunch) at our family farm on the Morning Peninsula in Victoria, surrounded by Italian flavours. The food I love to eat and make is layered with Sicilian heritage and history.

Before Coppola’s 2017 film, there was Eastwood’s portrayal of the Union soldier taken in by an all-girls school. It’s an all-timer scumbag performance

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

On paper, Don Siegel’s 1971 southern Gothic melodrama The Beguiled appears the perfect candidate for a remake: a critical and commercial failure in its own time, its infamous reputation helped it linger in the margins of popular consciousness. Sofia Coppola would have thought as much when she directed her own take on Thomas P. Cullinan’s source novel in 2017. While Coppola’s version is full of distinct beauty, Siegel’s original stands alone in its unyielding thorniness – that may have seemed like a career misstep for star Clint Eastwood upon its initial release, but now stands clearly as one of the most potent subversions of the masculine archetype he helped popularise.

Eastwood plays John McBurney, an unscrupulous corporal fighting for the Union during the waning days of the American civil war. Wounded in rural Mississippi, McBurney is found drenched in his own blood by 12-year-old Amy, out picking mushrooms despite the many potential dangers. Amy takes the wounded McBurney to the seminary where she boards. Soon, his presence both as an enemy soldier and a man throws the ecosystem of the Confederate-sympathising, all-women school into disarray.

Trans people are twice as likely as US adults overall to serve in the armed forces. But we’re regularly told our careers and lives aren’t worth saving

Late last month, the Trump administration moved to fire transgender people serving in the armed forces.

This includes those who have honorably served for for 19 years (one year short of retirement) those who have served honorably in combat situations, and those in whom the military has already invested millions of dollars in training.

Industries across the country are bracing for the impact of the Trump administration’s worldwide tariff regime

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

A run on gold in America – fanned by fears of a global trade war – has given Australia its first trade surplus with the US in decades, undermining the government’s key argument for exemption from Donald Trump’s impending global tariff regime.

Australia expects to be included in a comprehensive global tariff regime of 25% on aluminium and steel imports from Wednesday, but which is set to expand to other sectors, such as agriculture and pharmaceuticals, in coming months.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email

World cuisines that use curd cheeses frequently sub in cottage cheese, even in sweet dishes – read on for inspiration

Why is everyone talking about cottage cheese, and can you make anything that’s actually good with it?
“I’ve never understood why cottage cheese has such a bad rep,” says Tommy Banks, chef/director of The Black Swan at Oldstead, Roots York and The Abbey Inn in North Yorkshire, who is a big fan of the white stuff. “It’s deliciously creamy and so versatile; I use it in both sweet and savoury dishes at home, where it’s a staple.” And he’s not kidding: Banks has it for lunch just about every weekday, either with scrambled eggs or tinned fish. “It’s a great, affordable, high-protein quick-fix.”

There’s no denying that the diet food from the 1980s is experiencing something of a revival, thanks to videos of ice-cream, flatbread and pancakes made from the curds and whey receiving millions of views on TikTok over the past year or so. However, it is also a good alternative to urda, a Balkan cheese made from leftover whey that, when Irina Janakievska moved to the UK 20 years ago, was impossible to find here. “I started using cottage cheese instead,” says the author of The Balkan Kitchen. “And while it isn’t a direct substitute, it is versatile.” For a riff on a Balkan-style filo or hand-stretched savoury pastry (“such as gibanica, banitsa or burek”), Janakievska combines cottage cheese, fried leeks and blanched and roughly chopped greens (spinach, chard, sorrel, nettles, say), then binds them with an egg before swaddling in filo and baking.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

It’s great for those who enjoy a punch-up on the right, but as the zealots duke it out, think of the voters who trusted them

How soon before one of Reform’s MPs starts touting himself as the reform Reform candidate? A negative amount of time, it seems, with Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe already relieved of the whip for saying that Reform is currently “a protest party led by the Messiah”. Yep: Jesus Christ Superkings.

Anyway, Nigel Farage has taken all this as well as you might expect. In terms of what’s happened since, with even Nigel judging that “things have got a little bit out of control”, I’m finding it quite hard to immerse myself fully in every angle. Mainly because I’m worried it’s going to be one of those stories that demeans men – and I’m a passionate supporter of their involvement in politics, whatever people are saying about DEI nowadays.

From Jason Isaacs’ shocking flash to Theo James wearing a prosthetic he described as ‘ginormous’, the luxury resort drama is packed with male nudity. Why are so many men going full frontal?

Lucius Malfoy just showed us his wand. In the fourth and latest episode of The White Lotus, viewers saw more of actor Jason Isaacs than they expected. Several inches more. We screamed in unison with his character’s grossed-out children. You didn’t get that at Hogwarts.

As wealthy patriarch Timothy Ratliff, he has been steadily coming off the rails at the five-star Thai resort. The dodgy dealings upon which he built his high-finance empire have been uncovered by journalists in the US. The feds are closing in. Assets have been seized. He is desperately trying to cover his tracks to avoid jail time, while hiding the scandal from his dysfunctional family, who were forced into a digital detox upon arrival at the spa. Safe to say they will have a fair few notifications when they switch their phones back on.

Trump is expected to privatize the USPS, where Black people make up 29% of the staff, and cut down on the number of jobs

In recent weeks, the fate of the United States Postal Service (USPS), a revered and vital public institution, has been uncertain. Since the start of his second presidency, Donald Trump has launched major changes to the federal government. Along with billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), the president has carried out widespread layoffs at agencies such as the Small Business Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with the purported goal of cutting costs and boosting efficiency. Now, Trump is turning his focus to the post office, an agency he has long been critical of and one that he may be privatizing.

In addition to delivering upwards of 343.5m pieces of mail and packages a day, the post office is responsible for administering official government forms such as passport applications, and providing banking services, such as money orders. As of 2025, it employs 640,000 people. Black people, in particular, make up 29% of its staff, while making up just 12% of the national workforce overall.

A new study shows that children who eat seafood are more likely to share their toys and help their friends. But why?

Name: Fish.

Age: 530m years.

Fashion week also brings Louis Vuitton showcasing cinematic romance of train travel

Chanel came gift-wrapped in black ribbon at Paris fashion week. The ribbon was made of steel, not silk. It was the width of a city street and 368 metres long, soaring skywards beside the long catwalk like very pretty scaffolding. The message: the house of Chanel is as tough as it is chic.

New designer Matthieu Blazy is expected to take up his role next month, by which time Chanel will have been without a creative lead for almost a year. This design vacuum poses a challenge for the house, but Chanel still has a star designer – albeit one who has been dead for 54 years.

Desolate spectacle of executions begins again under Trump, in landscape of capital punishment as riven as US is as a whole

David Leonard Wood. Jessie Hoffman. Aaron Gunches. Wendell Grissom. Edward Thomas James. Moises Sandoval Mendoza.

So many names. So many dead men walking. Ten days, five states, six death row prisoners scheduled for execution.

It’s tough being a nepo baby – especially when your daddy suddenly loses his influence

Poor Hunter Biden. His dad, who issued him an unconditional pardon as one of his last acts as US president, saved him from the justice system – but it’s quite apparent no one is coming to save his art career.

You may have had other things on your mind lately, so let me remind you about the trajectory of one of the US’s most controversial artists. Just a few years ago, Joe Biden’s troubled son, who had previously earned megabucks sitting on various boards doing mysterious board things, was enjoying remarkable success as an “emerging” artist. His paintings were being exhibited in a fancy New York gallery and selling for large sums. Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer and friend of Biden, reportedly bought 11 works for a total of $875,000 (£690,000). Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Democratic donor, bought two paintings, for $42,000 and $52,000. All in all, Hunter sold art for about $1.5m between 2021 and 2024. Not too shabby for someone considered an amateur.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The social, educational and financial impact is still making itself felt, especially for those who continue to mourn

Five years ago, on 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. In the intervening years, more than 7 million people worldwide have been reported to have died from Covid. For most people, life as they remember it before the outbreak has returned to the way it was before. However, respondents to a Guardian callout reflect a more complex picture for those who are still affected.

While many reported feeling happier that working from home has allowed for a more flexible work-life balance and that eating more healthily and exercising has become a priority, many others described how they still live with what happened.

• Lossiemouth streaks home, Majborough shocked
• Greg Wood’s day two tips | And you can email Niall

1.20 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle: Oddspedia market movers

Kopek Des Bordes (1/1 into 4/5)

Romeo Coolio (8/1 into 11/2)

Karniquet (66/1 into 40/1)

President sacks Alusine Kanneh after video of him with Johannes Leijdekkers, one of Europe’s most wanted

Sierra Leone’s president has fired the head of the immigration service days after footage was published showing him receiving a birthday gift from a fugitive Dutch drug kingpin.

The footage of Alusine Kanneh being handed a present by Johannes Leijdekkers – which has not been independently verified by the Guardian – was published by the investigative outlet Follow the Money and the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad on Friday.

Senior officials meet in Jeddah aiming to build confidence after Trump cut support for Ukraine in war with Russia

• Europe live – latest updates

Senior US and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Saudi Arabia for crunch talks focused on ending the war with Russia, aiming to build confidence despite a personal crisis between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Although the two presidents will be absent, Zelenskyy has sent his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, while Trump dispatched his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, to Jeddah.

Cameron is pulling out all the stops to promote Avatar: Fire and Ash, by telling the world that it reduced Suzy Amis Cameron to tears for four hours

Can you feel it? If you’re paying enough attention, and you have your spirit tuned to the frequencies of the planet, then you’ll be able to sense that the old Avatar machinery is starting to crank up again. The third instalment of the series, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is set for release in December. And this means that James Cameron finds himself saddled with a familiar task; in just nine months he has to try and motivate people to see a film from a franchise that they’ve already forgotten about twice before now.

The bad news is that these are incredibly expensive films to make. So expensive, in fact, that Cameron previously stated that the second film needed to be the third highest grossing movie of all time just to break even. And, just to compound things, that film was such an incomprehensible mishmash of confused mythology, nondescript motivation and vague characterisation that this one needs to be something really special to get bums on seats.

• Woman claims player was involved in assault
• Beckham says he was not in California at time

NFL star Odell Beckham Jr has denied any wrongdoing after saying he was named in a lawsuit that alleges Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs initiated a gang-rape against a woman in California.

In an initial lawsuit filed in October, Ashley Parham claims she was lured to an apartment in Orinda, California, and assaulted by multiple men. She alleges the assault was watched by Combs, who she had claimed had played a part in the killing of Tupac Shakur. An amended lawsuit filed on Friday is understood to have named former Beckham as one of her attackers.

• Hannah Jones says she considered quitting last year
• WRU allegedly threatened pulling out of World Cup

The Wales captain, Hannah Jones, has said that the squad’s experience in a contract controversy last year was “disgraceful” and made her contemplate international retirement.

Allegations emerged in October that the Welsh Rugby Union had threatened to withdraw from the 2025 Rugby World Cup if the women’s team did not sign new contracts on offer. Jones says the negotiations last year were difficult “from day one” and that communication with the WRU was a “big issue”, with some of her players “becoming unwell physically and mentally” because of the process.

Westchester county has laws limiting cooperation, but Ice has accessed trove of data that holds license plate readers

As Donald Trump’s administration ramps up its crackdown on undocumented immigrants to the US, advocates are increasingly worried immigration agents will turn to surveillance technology to round up those targeted for deportation, even in so-called “sanctuary cities” that limit the ways local law enforcement can cooperate with immigration officials.

That’s because US Customs and Immigration Enforcement (Ice) in past years has gained access to troves of data from sanctuary cities that could aid its raids and enforcement actions. Among that information is data from the vast network of license plate readers active across the US, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

As mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, Randall Woodfin is trying to tackle a murder epidemic. He’s all too familiar with the pain of losing a loved one to violence

It was past midnight on 27 May 2012 when Randall Woodfin, an early-career public prosecutor, received a call about his older brother. “Ralph’s been shot,” he was told, abruptly. “You need to come.”

He jumped in a car, and raced across the city of Birmingham, Alabama, running every red light along the way. He made it to the police perimeter. It was a block and a half from his grandmother’s old home, at a public-housing project in the city’s south, where the two brothers – eight years apart – had spent much of their childhood.

Oscar Jégou’s fine Dublin performance brings into focus the potential impact of forwards who can play anywhere

The Six Nations title is still theoretically on the line entering the final weekend. But, let’s be honest, if France display the same power against Scotland as they did against Ireland in Dublin there is only one probable outcome. Even minus the unfortunate Antoine Dupont, now facing a long lay-off because of damaged knee ligaments, France have frightening reserves of strength and depth.

How good, for example, was the young back-row forward Oscar Jégou after he arrived off the bench to replace the centre Pierre-Louis Barassi? The 21-year-old from La Rochelle did not simply make a try-scoring impact; he made every specialist centre in the competition shift uneasily in their seats. Why bother with a subtle, ball-playing 12 or 13 when you have a 6ft 3in Superman who makes old-school positional orthodoxies redundant?

This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.