DOUBTS have been raised about the validity of the much vaunted Wales defence in the World Cup – by an Englishman in charge of France.

Dave Ellis, Les Bleus’ defence chief, has also claimed that Warren Gatland’s side have copied their low tackling-style defence.

“Wales have played against South Africa, who don’t score tries, and they have played against Ireland, who don’t score a lot of tries,” claimed the blunt Yorkshireman.

“They have played teams who kick and are defence-orientated so logically they have not been tested yet. We will want to do that without a doubt.

“France have been tackling low for the past 12 years. The French players are not big guys, not like the All Blacks, the Australians and the South Africans, so we’ve had to adapt our style over the years.

“It’s very rare you see Thierry Dusautoir or Julienne Bonnaire going high.

“People talk about how much progress the Welsh team has made but I think France have made a hell of a lot more progress to get from how we played in the first four games to how we played against England. And we intend to step up another few this week.”

Ellis denied there is any disharmony in the French camp between coach Marc Lievremont and his players after earlier reports that they had fallen out and there was even a stand-off between them.

He said: “Marc says it to the players, he says it to the Press quite honestly.

“I played the game for many years and didn’t like being told I’d had a bad game either. Everything has been taken from that and blown out of all proportion. It’s good now and it always has been.”

And after claiming the Welsh defence had not really been tested Ellis praised the side and singled out Shane Williams and Jamie Roberts as players to watch.

“Wales is always a difficult game, we’ve played them in the Six Nations and when we’ve won a Six Nations or a Grand Slam the most difficult game has always been Wales,” he said.

“The ratings they are getting are justified, they’ve played well against South Africa and almost won, they’ve won all their other games including a very tough one against Samoa and they beat an in-form Ireland team. They’re on the crest of a wave.

“We’ve played against Jamie Roberts on numerous occasions and he’s a major threat, we are going to have to stop him from doing what he’s been doing so far.

“Shane is dangerous even on his own try line so you just have to be on your guard against him all the time. You control him for the biggest part of a game then all of a sudden he gets the ball, chips over the top and wins the game for the opposition.

“The idea is to make sure he doesn’t get the ball by dominating his team and putting them on the back foot.

“Leigh Halfpenny is also outstanding so if we kick the ball at the wrong time in the wrong place we are going to get punished.”