Paris - With only one Six Nations title since 2003, England should find themselves in pole position if they heed Eddie Jones' words and give Italy “a good hiding” on Sunday.
Jones made a winning start as England coach when his side produced an effective, if unspectacular, display to defeat Scotland 15-9 at Murrayfield last weekend.
England will expect to beat Italy in Rome with Jones set to make some changes with the Australian wanting more fleet-footed forwards to take the game to the Azzurri.
“We'll pick the best 23 for Italy, so we could conceivably pick a faster pack,” Jones said when asked whether he would reshuffle a team who gave away several breakdown penalties in the first half against Scotland.
Forwards Mako Vunipola and Courtney Lawes, along with scrumhalf Ben Youngs, are likely to replace Joe Marler, Joe Launchbury and Danny Care when Jones names his team on Friday.
“We want to go to Rome and smack Italy,” said Jones.
Like England, new-look France also made a winning start with a new coach at the helm although they were far from impressive in scraping a 23-21 win at home over Italy.
The French, indepted to Jules Plisson's late long-range penalty to get them over the line against the Italians, on Saturday host an Ireland side who they have not won against since 2011.
With his own number eight Louis Picamoles ruled out injured, Noves has made six changes as Les Bleus look to tighten their defence against Ireland who beat them 24-9 in the pool phase at the World Cup in October.
“Against Italy we were not up to international standards in defence,” said Noves, who has kept faith in his novice halfback pairing of Sebastien Bezy and Jules Plisson. “Ireland are very good at keeping the ball, they are defence crushers.”
France will look to outspeed the Ireland defence with their talented wingers Virimi Vakatawa and Teddy Thomas. Sevens stalwart Vakatawa scored a try on his debut against Italy while Thomas is back in the team after being dropped last year for disciplinary reasons following a brilliant start.
“You know that he's a real threat from the fact he's thrived in Sevens,” Ireland's Dave Kearney said of Vakatawa. “Give someone like that space and they cause you trouble.”
Holders Ireland, who drew 16-16 with Wales in Dublin, have made three changes with brothers Dave and Rob Kearney and Sean O'Brien called into the team.
Wales, who clawed back a 13-point first-half deficit against the Irish, will be expected to prevail at home on Saturday against Scotland who are on an eight-game losing streak in the Six Nations.
Flyhalf Dan Biggar is fit enough to play in an unchanged Wales team after recovering from an ankle sprain while Scotland made one change with Duncan Taylor replacing injured centre Matt Scott.
Reuters