Six Nations 2015: Welshman Jamie Roberts may return home after helping his country to victory in Paris

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Wales’s Jamie Roberts said he was likely to announce a decision on which club he would play for next season within “a fortnight” after he featured prominently in his country’s 20-13 win over France in Paris on Saturday evening. Roberts’s relentless performance – including the stunning tackle on Rémi Talès that closed out the match – lived up to an article in the Stade de France match programme in which he was quoted as saying he wanted to resume studying at university in a few months’ time. At an educated guess this would be closer to his Cardiff home than the French capital, where Roberts has represented Racing Métro for the last two seasons.

The article described Roberts as “the giant of the sixth arrondissement”, a “walker through walls” and a “walking miracle” (the last epithet for his achievements in 2013, including qualifying as a doctor). The 6ft 4in former Cardiff Blue responded with bursts across the gain line and a refusal to be dominated in defence that helped Wales to a fourth straight win over France. The score at the Stade de France is 5-4 to Wales since the stadium opened in 1998.

“France had a few line breaks and we can’t allow that against Ireland [on Saturday week],” Roberts said. “But our scrum and line-out were superb. I think our set piece was 100 per cent.”

Wing George North was a constant surging threat as he made a rousing return after his one-match stand-down to recover from concussion. Leigh Halfpenny passed the 500-point milestone in Tests with his five penalty goals; the 26-year-old full-back has another 500-odd to go to match the Wales record-holder, Neil Jenkins.

“It’s nice to get praised but we know where we are as a team and we are not the finished article by any means,” said Dan Lydiate, the flanker whose neat reverse pass was crucial in Wales’s game-breaking try by Dan Biggar after 59 minutes. Lydiate, who gave up on his sojourn with Racing a few weeks ago to go home and join the Ospreys, gave one of his more eye-catching displays of recent times.

Either country could yet win the Six Nations title if every remaining result goes their way but France captain Thierry Dusautoir was open to looking further ahead. “I remember the French team didn’t do that well in the 2011 Six Nations but we reached the final of the World Cup that year, so maybe it will be OK,” he said.

While Wales woke to a happy St David’s Day, France’s former centre and team manager Jo Maso was giving a non-committal holding statement on behalf of the French Rugby Federation in response to the recent revival of long-standing allegations that the use of amphetamines was widespread among his country’s players from the 1970s to the 90s.