France out-half Romain Ntamack has been ruled out of the World Cup due to a knee injury, the French Rugby Federation has confirmed.
Ntamack had a knee scan on Monday morning after limping off the field in a Saturday warm-up Test game against Scotland.
"Ntamack was hit in the left knee and had to leave the field," said the FFR on their website.
"Imaging this morning diagnosed a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament. As a result, Romain Ntamack will be forfeited for the World Cup."
I'll be back pic.twitter.com/HPO9rVpFbC
— Romain Ntamack (@RomainNtamack) August 14, 2023
The Toulouse out-half posted "I'll be back" on social media earlier this morning.
The 24-year-old has been a crucial player for Les Bleus over the last four years and his loss is a massive blow to their World Cup ambitions.
Bordeaux's Matthieu Jalibert and La Rochelle’s Antoine Hastoy are among the options for head coach Fabien Galthie to replace Ntamack.
France also lost prop forward Cyril Baille to a calf injury as they scraped a 30-27 victory over the Scots at the Stade Geoffroy-Guichard.
The Toulouse man will be out for five to six weeks.
France are in Pool A of the World Cup and face New Zealand, Uruguay, Namibia and Italy. The top two teams will progress to the quarter-finals where they will face the winners and runners-up from Pool B, which contains Ireland, South Africa, Scotland, Tonga and Romania.
"It remains a preparation match, with a different team from last weekend, who played together again for the first time since the end of March," Galthie said of the win over Scotland.
"The Scots have a month and a half of preparation more than us because they finished their Championship in mid-May. Our goal is to continue preparing for a month and, even during the pool phase of the World Cup, there will be work to ramp up."
It was the second successive Saturday that France played Scotland, and they had put out a second-string side at Murrayfield last weekend and lost 25-21.
But the team for the St Etienne clash was close to full strength.
"We have seen what we are capable of doing and had some highlights which allowed us to score to win the match," the coach added.
Galthie said his side's fatigue was to blame for the Scots storming back and almost snatching victory near the end.
"We were also taken aback at the start of the match but the second half gave us a glimpse how we can be successful."
France play another warm-up test against Fiji in Nantes on Saturday and then meet Australia in Paris on 27 August.
Their first game at the World Cup is the opening match at the Stade de France against New Zealand on 8 September.
Watch live coverage of Ireland's Rugby World Cup warm-up games v England (19 August) and Samoa (26 August) on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio, or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.
Additional reporting: Reuters
