Returning: Mathieu Bastareaud
Toulon centre Mathieu Bastareaud will start at outside centre for France in one of two changes for Saturday's game with Wales.
Bastareaud comes in for Florian Fritz, who drops to the bench, reuniting him with Toulon team-mate Maxime Mermoz in midfield.
The other change sees Toulon lock Jocelino Suta replace the injured Pascal Papé to partner Yoann Maestri.
Thierry Dusautoir, France's captain during the previous Six Nations campaign, is named skipper in Papé's absence as France look to bounce back from last weekend's shock 23-18 defeat against Italy in Rome.
France: 15 Yoann Huget, 14 Wesley Fofana, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 12 Maxime Mermoz, 11 Benjamin Fall, 10 Frederic Michalak, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Louis Picamoles, 7 Fulgence Ouedraogo, 6 Thierry Dusautoir, 5 Yoann Maestri, 4 Jocelino Suta, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Dimitri Szarzewski, 1 Yannick Forestier
Replacements: 16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Vincent Debaty, 18 Luc Ducalcon, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Damien Chouly, 21 Morgan Parra, 22 Francois Trinh-Duc, 23 Florian Fritz.
Date: Saturday, February 9:
Venue: Stade de France
Kick-off: 18.00 local (17.00 GMT)
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Alain Rolland (Ireland), Francisco Pastrana (Argentina)
Television match official: Giulio De Santis (Italy)
Comments
Spartacus says...
Machenaud did not boss his pack in the Italy game, and the pack did need bossing. Parra would have done that if he had started, and in my opinion is currently up there in the top 3 scrum halves in the world. I love French rugby, and want to see their talent realised at International level, but PSA is not the man to realise this. Great player, but he has not got a good record as a coach and it is showing.
Posted 10:21 07th February 2013
FISH says...
i really hope france wins but this guy is useless he'll probably give away a couple of tries
Posted 09:36 07th February 2013
ArmchairGeneral says...
Like I said... Bastareud vs Tuilagi will happen. Its just too mouth watering not to. The Script is written in the stars.
Posted 09:27 07th February 2013
paddy91317 says...
can somebody please tell me why the best first centre in the competition is starting on the wing??????????? and another note Parra would start for the all blacks yet he is on the bench what's wrong with France and selecting crazy teams??????????
Posted 09:26 07th February 2013