There were many sons and daughters facing an agonising decision yesterday, do they risk the wrath of Mam by neglecting Mothering Sunday duties and head to the Principality Stadium, or do they take the safest and most diplomatic option to stay at home and indulge their maternal parent.

Of course the alternative, and perhaps most obvious option, was to buy an extra ticket for Mam and take her to the game, whether she wanted to go or not.

Those brave souls who took the first option, with early morning appeasing flowers and chocolates delivered, were there on hand to witness new boys Joe Roberts and Gaël Fickou lining up for their respective National anthems, certainly no soft centres on view there.

Those gnarly French props have the kind of faces only a mother could love, but nothing that compares to the grizzly front row legends of yesteryear, Messrs Ondarts, Cholley, Garuet and co were once described by Bill McLaren as “Having faces like a bag full of chisel’s”.

But beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this current French outfit are obviously fully paid up members of the ‘big is beautiful’ brigade with Emmanuel Meafou and Uini Atonio pounding the Cardiff turf at a Teutonic plate sheltering combined weight of 46 stones, the former also measuring 6ft 8ins in height.

But good things also come in small packages and Cameron Winnett is the gift that keeps on giving this season. Despite being positively diminutive in comparison at 13st 5lbs and 5ft 10, his calm demeanour and graceful running and safety under the high ball have been one of the positives of this campaign, and you feel that the Wales number 15 shirt if not nailed down then certainly has a few drawing pins firmly pressed into it.

Max Boyce singing a new version of Hymns & Arias warmed up the 71,242 crowd before kick off, and the big French contingent responded with a stirring rendition of Le Marseilles.

Wales took it to the French in the first half matching Les Bleus in the try scoring stakes with Rio Dyer and Tomos Williams’ touchdowns matched by those of Gaël Fickou and Nolann Le Garrec. France took a narrow three point lead into the interval (17-20).

Wales could not have started the second half much better, a try from Joe Roberts two minutes after the restart gave Wales a 24-20 lead, a lead they maintained until the 60th minute when a Tomas Ramos penalty opened the floodgates for France. Three tries in fifteen minutes took the game away from a brave and entertaining Welsh side who were unable to get field position to mount any attacks.

The superior quality and power of France’ bench made the difference as the timings of their scores suggests.

21 year old scrum half Nolann Le Garrec, the man from Vannes, received the man of the match award and France leave Cardiff with a huge sense of relief after finally wearing down Wales in the final quarter to register a 45-24 win.

Wales remain winless and now have a must win match against a buoyant Italy in Cardiff next Saturday to avoid a whitewash and the wooden spoon.

France will look forward to entertaining England in Lyon with the hope of finishing their disappointing tournament with a flourish.