France will rely on a heavyweight backrow to try and contain world champions South Africa in their Test in Toulouse on Friday.
Kick-off is at 21:45 SA time.
Regular No 8 Imanol Harinordoquy has been switched to blindside flank with Louis Picamoles packing into the back of the scrum and captain Thierry Dusautoir starting at openside flank.
“We picked a backrow that offers a lot of guarantees in terms of power and experience,” coach Marc Lievremont told a news conference at the team’s training camp in Marcoussis on Monday.
Asked if he had considered selecting Sebastien Chabal in the backrow, the French coach answered with a blunt “no” before adding: “Even if he his less explosive than Chabal, Picamoles has proved his worth in terms of power.”
Lievremont kept faith with Julien Dupuy, the former Leicester scrumhalf now with Stade Francais, and flyhalf Francois Trinh-Duc, who both played in France’s 27-22 win over New Zealand in June, but re-jigged other parts of the backline. Damien Traille was moved from centre to fullback to counter the aggressive field kicking of the Springboks.
Traille’s move allowed for the selection of the youthful centre pairing of Maxime Mermoz, a 23-year-old with four Test caps, and 21-year-old Yann David, who will earn his second cap.
“Maxime is the in-form centre of the French championship but we had a long discussion before selecting Yann ahead of David Marty who is Mermoz’s team-mate with Perpignan,” Lievremont said.
“We went for the robustness of David because we think power will be important against the Springboks.”
France:
15-Damien Traille, 14-Vincent Clerc, 13-Yann David, 12-Maxime Mermoz, 11-Cedric Heymans, 10-Francois Trinh-Duc, 9-Julien Dupuy, 8-Louis Picamoles, 7-Imanol Harinordoquy, 6-Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 5-Romain Millo-Chluski, 4-Lionel Nallet, 3-Nicolas Mas, 2-William Servat, 1-Fabien Barcella
Replacements: 16-Dimitri Szarzewski, 17-Sylvain Marconnet, 18-Sebastien Chabal, 19-Julien Bonnaire, 20-Morgan Parra, 21-David Marty, 22-Maxime Medard
So as I can’t understand the Afrikaaans, do we think those ruddy frogs will give the Boks a hard time?
Well I suppose we should be a bit cautious as Leicester II had their ‘wicked way’ with them on Friday!! 😆
30@Carol – Mmmmm, condensed milk and Tequila… sounds like a good combination!
The Froggies will be tough… that’s for sure!
32 You could market it as a cocktail called “Bulls Milk” and put in curaco to make it blue!!
Bleahhhhhh……….
33@ Carol – Oi…. Curacao is vile stuff!!
Do you know any other blue liquers? Thought not!! 😉
35@ Carol – Just add Blue Food Colouring… hehehe
What are we talking about… it’s about YOUR flu…. you should just get a PENISilin injection tonight….. hehehehe
Blow that, I just need to lie down……alone, in a darkened room!!
Well I am going to put the Boks to win by a small margin on superBru against the frogs, the Leicester incident will galvanise them into action!! (I hope)
38@ Carol – There is a gulf between the Bokke best team and the supposed Bokke D-Team… so it should go better…. but I’m worried.
Boks might just have caught enough of a wakeup to win. Traditionally we play crap on year end tours, lets hope they change that pattern!
39 – GBS you Bok fans just love the tension and anxiety!! It is very amusing to an outsider!!
40 Hi 4man, thanks for your call last week, that would have been great to see the Boks play…..however the result would have rather spoiled it!! 😉
How are you doing?
I also hear the ground at Leicester was packed!! Think filling Wembeley would be a folorn hope on Tuesday!!
42 Carol, I’m good thanks. I would have enjoyed the game anyway. I hope the Boks stick to tradition and let Leicester have a springbok trophy head to stick on their trophy wall, its traditional if a club beats the Boks….anyway I would like to see the tradition carried on.
43 Carol, are you up for a Rammstein concert at Wembley in early Feb, bound to be a blast, you can wear your black grunge gear, like your photo 🙂
44 – Are you offering to go and shoot one? 😆
Probably a bit politically incorrect these days, unless you said it was roadkill!!
Who is Rammstein? Sounds heavy metal ish……I can’t You Yube as I have a bit of an adobe flashplayer situation going on here, hoping to fly GBS out to The Cotswolds to fixm my computer!!
He seems reluctant, claims he’s busy!! 😆
46- I dont run springbok over, I shoot them. Like that 32 kg one I shot 3 weeks ago (with the guts out), biggest one I’ve ever shot in the Karoo….pity it was my friends breeding ram (I didnt see his earring) so I did the gentlmanly thing and paid for a new ram for him and the petrol to go and get it in the Kalahari.
47- tell him to get his act together and make it on the 29th then I can see him too.
Rammstein….German metal rock group, very accomplished, they’ve been around for yonks but very popular. I’m amazed you dont know them. I can see I am going to have to work assidiously on your rock and roll education!! 🙂
48@ Oupa 4man – The eyes are not what they used to be…. maybe I should TYPE IN CAPITALS AND IN BOLD TYPE
50- Wat se k*k storie is dit nou wat jy praat, daars niks verkeerd met my oe!!! 🙂
51@ 4man – Hey, dissie ek wat die ram geskiet het nie…. hehehe
48 – Opps, bet your heart sank when you saw the ear tag!! Most expensive Springbok ever for you was it?
You may be in for some hard work, Robzim very paitently tried me with some Bob Dylan , some easy listensing bits and although I loved the lyrics just could not get into the whole Dylan ‘vibe’……
I can be a lost cause!! My idea of heavy metal is ‘pop’ metal, Paranoid (only that one Sabbath track), and some White Snake and Iron Maiden!!
An amazing thing happened to me at Cardiff by the way!!
Oh yes GBS are you free for luch on Sunday 29th at the farm, meet up with dead eye dick here and his wife!! 😉
52- Ja nee ou maat, die “tracker” se vir my “oubaas die oorbelletjie is in die linker oor”, ek sien toe die Bokkies hardloop en hulle move, maar ek sien geen oorbelletjie so ek klap die derde een in die ry, die grootste….in daar is die oorbelltjie in die regtekanste oor. Ek wou sommer die tracker skiet. Ek het van die linkerkant geskiet….beste sou gewees het as ek mis skiet, maar terloops my “generation” mis nie. 🙂
54@ Carol – Yes, I’ll send my twin… hehehe
56 Can he do computers too?
53- What happened at Cardiff? Yes it was my most expensive Springbok ever, R3000.
Carol my son Jason is in Bath, perhaps he can phone you and help, or how far is it to get the computer to him? perhaps he can make a plan, do you want me to find out? He’s young though (only 32) so be gentle to him :):)
58 – Well, sitting right infront of me was my sisters ex boyfriend who I had not seen for years, he was the one who introduced us to U2, The Jam, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, The Undertones etc, all the cool post punk bands
We went to see all these bands live at the universities with him. Fark, talk about rolling back the years!! 😉
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