When you play France you take on an entire stadium, says Jonathan Davies

Sky Sports' Jonathan Davies is familiar with the Stade de France, and says he has spent this week warning his colleagues that they face more than just a stern test from the French team this weekend...

I said last week that I was a bit worried about what kind of reception I would get from my host for the night, Mike Phillips, if we beat Racing Metro. While I thought we could snatch a win, at least with a draw neither of us had any particular leverage over the other!

The French fans are incredibly passionate and when they sing it does thunder around, so it will be a noisy affair this weekend.

I travelled to Cardiff the next day and with that in mind it would have been nice if the France game was being played at the Millennium Stadium, or if training could have taken place in Paris. As I write this I am in Cardiff, but I was in Paris on Sunday morning, then heading back out to Paris for the game this weekend. So besides a bit of home advantage it would have been nice to miss out on all the flights. Though admittedly there isn’t much jet lag between Cardiff and Paris!

Home advantage aside it will be really good to play in the Stade de France this weekend - it’s a superb place to play rugby. It doesn’t look particularly impressive from the outside because it’s built into the ground, but once you’re inside it is one of the great stadiums of the world. The French fans are incredibly passionate and when they sing it does thunder around, so it will be a noisy affair this weekend.

Difficult environment

As a player you are used to getting advice from the coaching team, but on Monday morning during breakfast I got a tap on the shoulder from Rob Howley, asking me a few questions about my team-mates in France and others in the Top 14. He wanted to get an idea of any traits that may give us an advantage.

Playing in France you get a good idea of their culture, their way of life and how passionate they are, and all I’ve been doing this week is emphasising that fact to the boys. It’s not just a case of facing a difficult rugby team, you’re facing a difficult environment - you're playing against the entire stadium. You can’t build up to it during the game, you have to start building throughout the week leading up to it, and that’s what we’ve been doing.

I’ve said before that we get better the more we play together and Tuesday was a good indication of that for me. The backs were all very sharp and I’ve been told that the same can be said about the forwards - as a group there is clarity in what we’re doing. There hasn’t been much talking, we are all aware of the things we need to do: in order to be competitive in this tournament we need to win all our games and that starts this weekend.

We respect the French but we are backing our own players and are quietly confident that we can go to Paris and get a result. One of the important things for us is to ensure that we set the tempo of the game, rather than allowing them to dictate that tempo to us. They’ve got a team that’s bigger than ours so they’re going to try slow the game down but we want to keep it quick and move them around the park. If we are able to ensure that it’s our pace that the game is played at and we are playing in the areas we want to then we are in with a definite shout.

High regard

I was quite interested to see the midfield they have selected. Wesley Fofana was someone I held in high regard before I went to Clermont and that opinion has only been cemented during my time with the team, so he’s no surprise - he’s a world-class player and poses a huge threat to us.

Remi Lamerat, on the other hand, isn’t a player I know an awful lot about as I missed playing against him, but to take the place of Mathieu Bastareaud you have to be a special player so I definitely won’t be underestimating what he is capable of doing. I’ve been on the phone with the analysts and they are giving me some footage on him so I will be prepared for the challenge.

The game itself should be a good one. After our game against Racing Metro over the weekend I was having a few beers with Vincent Debaty and Sebastien Vahaamahina who were giving me a bit of lip about what France were going to do to Wales. The sting of the abuse was taken off a little by the fact that I didn’t fully understand what they were saying but it was good-natured I’m sure! What a game it promises to be – I hope you all enjoy it.