My Experience in Paris: 2025 Men's Six Nations opener – France vs Wales

Yesterday at 04:53 AM

I arrived into the French capital mid Friday afternoon where it was a carbon copy of how I left London Heathrow that morning, wet and cold. I headed straight to my hotel at Charles De Gaulle so I could drop off my bags and head straight to the Stade de France to be in and around the crowd to get a sense of the atmosphere.

With the roads gridlocked perhaps it wasn't the smartest of ideas to book an Uber over to the stadium. Instead I opted for The RER (Réseau Express Régional) train and after riding 10 stops through the suburbs of Paris I arrived at La Plaine Stade de France station.

Find your local Greene King and settle in for the 2025 Six Nations!

I was met with a sea of blue and smell of smoke as I joined the thousands of passionate French Rugby fans heading up the avenue leading to the magnificent Stade de France. It was a rather picturesque walk up towards the media accreditation pick-up point as the stadium was lit up in the countries National colours of red, white and blue as the rain kept pouring but that didn't damper the mood of anyone. As there was burger stands with big queues, bars rammed and even some live music performing as anticipation to the first whistle grew.

After waiting in the media queue for a good quarter of an hour in the pouring rain, I headed to the desk where I tried to impress by speaking in French. However, the guy on the desk clocked straight away I was a Welsh reporter and spoke English back to me so that made it easier for me.

French is a language I am familiar with, having lived in the country for a couple of years when I was younger, and that's where I found my passion for rugby supporting ASM Clermont Aurvegne. After saying abiento (see you later), to the media man I headed for the press room to dry off and warm up.

One of the more pleasant surprises for myself was what came with the media card they handed me. It was a branded French Rugby lanyard which was attached, which is something I wish other teams would do instead of wristbands. For weeks now I've been needing a new lanyard for my car keys and this will most certainly do the job.

Once in the press room I fired up my laptop, where I would start writing down my player ratings as I like to put some facts in about the players before actually talking about how they actually performed just to add some more context. Having only eaten a ham and cheese toastie and a Cappuccino earlier in the day and with British Airways only offering a bottle of Harrogate Water and a bag of ready salted nuts on the flight over, it must be said I was hungry.

But as I am sitting there with my food consisting of a chicken caesar salad wrap, ready salted crisp and bottle of Coke Zero it dawned on me how lucky I was. I am in Paris getting ready to cover my first Six Nations game as a University Student who only dreamed of doing this.

Then, all of a sudden Shane Williams walks into the room, followed by Josh Navidi and then to top it all off one of my favourite players growing up James Hook came into the media room. All three eating the same food as me with the same reaction when struggling to open the packet of crisps that was given to us.

There was a lot of firsts for myself on this trip but having to open a packet of crisps down the side of the packet instead of the top was something that probably shocked me the most. With all that said and done I quickly grabbed a much needed cup of coffee and headed into the stadium for the very first time since 2013. The last time I visited the Stade de France, I was 8-years-old and probably one of the most bizarre but more memorable moments was when George North crossed over in the corner to be joined in celebration by his own father who managed to get onto the pitch.

I was sat in the corner for that game but this time around I found myself bang on the half way line and after using my media pass, I found my allocated media desk. It was a good job that I had a coffee with me as it was just above freezing as I sat and watched the players warm-up.

I was waiting for one thing and that was the arrival of French superstar, Antoine Dupont who is arguably the best player in the world at the moment. I didn't actually see the scrum-half make his way out of the tunnel but my word did you know he was out there with the Stade de France offering him a rapturous welcome.

Kickoff soon approached and this was met with a brilliant light show and a massive French shirt that was centre stage in the middle of the stadium for everyone to see. Those thousands that I talked about earlier turned into tens of thousands as in the build up to kickoff, Alles Les Blues rang around the Stade de France as the players waited eagerly in the tunnel.

There was an incredible light show and fireworks which went off as both teams headed out of the tunnel. I would really like to know what the decibel levels were when they came out as it was deafening. One thing is for sure the French know how to put on a show and it was very fitting that they hosted the curtain raiser for the 2025 instalment of the Six Nations.

Now I would be lying if I said I didn't belt out the Welsh National anthem as did many of the Welsh Reporters in the media area. However that was nothing compared to the La Marseillaise, as again that was sang passionately by over 77,000 supporters packed into the Stade de France. Then after every time France scored it was met by the try scorers name and after then the score was announced and when it came to Wales' score the French crowd got louder as the evening went on with them belting out "zero" as loud as they could.

As we drew closer to the final whistle, my player ratings was coming together nicely and as Le Garrod kicked the ball dead it was met with an actual decibel reading of 90 plus as "Free to desire" was belted out. This was a fitting song as the French were on fire on Friday evening as they showed their class from start to finish. The same can be said for the French media team as after the final whistle I headed back to the media room got another coffee and headed to the auditorium for the post-match press conference which took me late into the Parisian night.

After that I headed to the mixed zone media area where I was able to get Josh Adams and Tom Rogers both of which were obviously disappointed but it must be said Adams is brilliant with the media as he gave me plenty to transcribe.

The next time I looked at my phone it read 00:57 as I left the stadium and headed back to my hotel where I quickly wrote up the talking points from Gatland's press conference. I then headed for some sleep as I needed to be up early as I had a early morning flight back to Heathrow.

It was a brilliant experience being in Paris for the game and it is something that will live me for the rest of my life, truly grateful and looking forward to doing it again very soon.

The post My Experience in Paris: 2025 Men’s Six Nations opener – France vs Wales appeared first on Ruck.