Six Nations 2012: Italy's new coach Jacques Brunel tries to build on one glorious win against France They also have a new coach. Philippe Saint-André can look forward to a lengthy honeymoon period, for he could hardly fail to be an improvement on the last bloke. Even a minor revival of France's traditional verve for flowing three-quarter play will no doubt be celebrated in the streets of Paris tonight. Meanwhile, Italy are also under French management. Their new coach is Jacques Brunel, a former full-back with a Hercule Poirot moustache. Brunel coached Perpignan to the French club championship in 2009, and is promising to inject a little more ambition into their pack-driven game plan. Mallett is named after a blunt object and his Italian side could sometimes be accused of playing like one too. Mallett is back at home in South Africa, where he is expected to remain for a good six months at least. He will no doubt be an interested observer on Saturday afternoon, as Italy face France again, this time at the Stade de France. He will be the absent friend of this year's tournament, the ghost at our six-week banquet. And his shadow will be particularly hard to avoid next week, when his former charges take on England - the team he is tipped to take control of. Like Saint-André, Mallett can hardly lose. If Italy regress, then their fans (an emotional bunch) will cry over his loss. If they improve, he will be saluted for erecting the foundations for the Brunel regime. And rightly so, for he is exactly the sort of painstaking rugby technician that a young team like this required. While results from the Six Nations could yet affect Mallett's destiny, one suspects that it would take an England Grand Slam to prevent him from replacing Stuart Lancaster at the helm later this year.