France winger Gabin Villière starred in France’s 37-10 opening round victory , scoring a hat-trick of tries and being named the Guinness Six Nations Player of the Match.
Villière scored three of France’s five tries, and in doing so became the first France player to score a hat-trick in the Guinness Six Nations since Vincent Clerc in 2008.
He scored the first of his three tries on the cusp of half-time, with some sumptuous hands from Romain Ntamack and Melvyn Jaminet finding the winger in open space to make the score 18-10 in favour of Les Bleus.
His second try showed the power he possesses as well as pace as he got onto the end of Gregory Alldritt’s break to break a tackle and finish.
And with the last play of the game, the ball came his way and once again he was in the right place at the right time and dotted down in the corner to ensure France went top of the Championship table.
But it was not just his try-scoring that impressed, as he also made 13 carries, second only to Alldritt, and 121 metres, the most in the game by some distance and further rewarding his fantasy rugby owners.
Villière said: “You are never alone in scoring tries, it’s always a collective effort that leads to them.
“This was my third match against Italy, and they are always difficult to play against. We always seem to start with Italy, so we have to be on it on from the off.
“It’s done and it was enjoyable, especially in front of this crowd.
“It shows the two weeks of work have paid off, we’ve got the win, we’ve got the bonus-point, so we won’t take that for granted, it’s very positive for the future.
“Of course, we will work on our little flaws in order to be ready against Ireland, because we know that it will be a big game, we are possibly playing for the Six Nations in that fixture.
“With the wind and the rain, they put us under a lot of pressure. We struggled to get the ball back easily.
“We put ourselves under pressure with a loose ball in front of our 22 metres and they scored from a cross-field kick. But we were able to put things right, keep our heads and get back on track.”
