{"id":38876,"date":"2026-02-13T02:37:01","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T02:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/six-nations-2026-wales-to-call-up-hawkins-and-cracknell-to-face-france\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T02:37:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T02:37:02","slug":"six-nations-2026-wales-to-call-up-hawkins-and-cracknell-to-face-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/six-nations-2026-wales-to-call-up-hawkins-and-cracknell-to-face-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Wales to call up Hawkins and Cracknell to face France"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Cracknell was a late call-up for the November series after the loss of Taulupe Faletau to injury.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old blind-side or number eight made his Test debut off the bench against Argentina<\/a> and then won man of the match in the last-kick win versus Japan.<\/p>\n

Cracknell is in line to join Aaron Wainwright and Alex Mann in the starting back row at the expense of open-side Josh Macleod.<\/p>\n

“The balance probably wasn’t right last weekend,” said former Wales flanker and captain Ellis Jenkins.<\/p>\n

“It’s making sure we have enough physicality so that we can match France at the contact area, tackle and collision.<\/p>\n

“I like Alex Mann and Josh Macleod in their own right, but I am not sure against England and France whether it’s a bit under-powered.”<\/p>\n

Wales could stick with a split of six forwards and two backs on the bench against the physicality of Les Bleus.<\/p>\n

Tandy’s side are huge underdogs against a France side that eased past Ireland on opening weekend.<\/p>\n

Wales have lost their past 12 games in the Six Nations, a streak that goes back to the win against Italy in Rome in March 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cracknell was a late call-up for the November series after the loss of Taulupe Faletau to injury. The 31-year-old blind-side or number eight made his Test debut off the bench against Argentina and then won man of the match in the last-kick win versus Japan. Cracknell is in line to join Aaron Wainwright and Alex […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38876"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38878,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38876\/revisions\/38878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}