The unseen weapon France have copied from Wales which shows they aren't just about thrilling Gallic flair

France roll into Cardiff tonight with the sole focus of setting up a Grand Slam decider with England next week.

With 13 tries already scored in the Six Nations and a host of world-class attacking players, the fear for anyone with even a passing interest in Wales is that this French side could tear virtually any team to shreds at will.

Which, in fairness, they can.

But the notion that the French are simply playing off-the-cuff, jouer jouer rugby is a little bit of a myth.

Because here's the thing.

All of their swashbuckling enterprise will be built upon one very basic facet of the game in which, in this tournament at least, they are unrivalled.

The kicking game is hardly glamorous - as former Wales captain Sam Warburton only knows too well.

He admitted on TV coverage a couple of years ago that his biggest frustration with the game was constantly being asked why teams kick the ball so much.

"People say to me regularly, 'why do we kick the ball all the time? Why are we kicking the ball?'" said Warburton.

"Straight away I think ‘you haven’t played international rugby then’ because you cannot run yourself out of trouble for 80 minutes.

"You will run yourself down a blind alley, a dark alley, and you’ll be in trouble. You have to kick, because kicking on to an opposition team, you can gain 50 or 60 metres of territory, you put the ball in their court, you put a massive amount of pressure on from your defence and it can often cause a knock-on.

"That means that 50-yard kick and good kick chase, you’ve got the ball back 50 to 60 yards later.

"Or you could try and run the ball out from your try line, 20 phases, and try and progress there,” Warburton pointed out sarcastically.

"Kicking with a good kick chase is much more