Head coach Jacques Brunel led France to pool stage victories over Argentina, USA and Tonga before their final scheduled clash with England was abandoned to due to Typhoon Hagibis hitting Tokyo.
It meant Les Bleus finished as runners-up in Pool C to set-up a clash with Wales.
Louis Picamoles, the experienced No 8 starts on the bench this weekend. He said: “Wales are a team we know well. It’s not been long since we met in the Six Nations.
“That’s a completely different context. It’s always a special match. “We haven’t beaten them very often, but we’ve never been far off either. We know we’ll have to prepare for the match thoroughly and turn up for 80 minutes.
“If we do that and you’ve worked on your confidence as we have, you have reason to hope. We want to play a good match on Sunday so we can start to dream.”
The last meeting between the two sides came in the Six Nations earlier this year.
In that game in Paris France stormed into a 16-0 half-time lead before Wales roared back to claim a 24-19 victory thanks to a brace of tries from George North after a Tomos Williams effort.
It laid the platform for a Welsh Grand Slam and Triple Crown, but also showed Wales’ players they must start fast this weekend to not give France a repeat head start.
Their last World Cup meeting in the 2011 semi-finals went the way of France by a single point after then Wales captain Sam Warburton was sent off.
“Wales are a collective. There are individual talents of course, but their strength is still the collective,” Picamoles added. “To put them in difficulty we need to be fast and win the contacts.
“Apart from our individual qualities, we have the team to do it. If we respect what’s been put in place and the structures and the work we’ve done in training, it will be harder for the Welsh to slow the game down. That’s where they might have some issues. That’s what we have to concentrate on.”
France head coach Brunel named his team to face Wales on Friday.
The former Italy boss was boosted by the availability of scrum-half Antoine Dupont and wing Damian Penaud after both players recovered from injury.
Dupont had been struggling with a bad back but returned to full training and will partner Romain Ntamack – son of French legend Emile – at half back.
Both players are regular starters for French TOP14 giants Toulouse so know each other well although Ntamack often features at inside centre at club level.
ASM Clermont Auvergne wing Penaud has shrugged off a hip and pelvic issue.
France will be captained by hooker Guilhem Guirado. If their forwards get on top of Wales then dangerous outside backs including centre Gael Fickou, wing Yoann Huget and full-back Maxime Medard can be unleashed. “We must turn the last match with Wales to our advantage. We had a great first half. We put them in trouble. We have to take that as our working base,” said Ntamack.
“But we have to correct things – we only played 40 minutes against them. This time we’ll need to play for 80 minutes. We start matches strongly. We have the opportunity to kill the opposition off, but we don’t and teams come back. We have to correct that and we’ll correct it this weekend.”
Fickou said: “At the Six Nations we were less equipped to deal with the opposition’s kicking game, but with our new system we are better set up to counter-attack and put Wales in difficulty.
“It’s an area we’ve talked about and worked on at training. Speed will undoubtedly be the key to the match and winning the duels too. If you do that any team will be in difficulty.”
France: Medard; Penaud, Vakatawa, Fickou, Huget; Ntamack, Dupont; Poirot, Guirado (capt), Slimani, Le Roux, Vahaamahina, Lauret, Ollivon, Alldritt
Replacements: Chat, Baille, Setiano, Gabrillagues, Picamoles, Serin, Lopez, Rattez
