Romain Ntamack suffers serious shoulder injury in France's 54-17 win over Fiji

France beat Fiji 54-17 in Lyon in their autumn Test, a comfortable result that was overshadowed by an injury to fly-half Romain Ntamack. He left the field in the second half after appearing to hurt his shoulder in the build-up to one of France's tries.

Maxime Lucu, the scrum-half who had been part of the matchday squad, took over at fly-half and also handled the kicking duties as France closed out the game. Until then, Ntamack had been paired with Antoine Dupont at half-back, the partnership coach Fabien Galthié had chosen for the match.

The injury mattered because the fly-half is the player who directs France's attack, and Ntamack's return to the Test side had been one of the storylines of the autumn. Galthié later indicated the shoulder problem was fairly serious and that Ntamack would be missing for the rest of the competition. The win itself put France top of the Northern Hemisphere standings in the new Nations Championship, but the absence of their first-choice fly-half raised questions about how the team would reorganise.