France recall Bastareaud for clash with England
Mathieu Bastareaud
France have recalled centre Mathieu Bastareaud in the only change to their side to face England on Saturday as they target a ninth Grand Slam.
The 21-year-old was a replacement for Sunday’s win over Italy, protecting a calf niggle, but is now fully fit.
He takes the place of David Marty, who scored two tries against Italy, coach Marc Lievremont restoring a player who starred in France’s opening three wins.
Victory over England would seal a first French clean sweep since 2004.
It would also bring a fifth Championship title in the 11 years of the Six Nations era.
France are two points clear of Ireland at the top of the standings and such is their superior points difference (+64 to Ireland’s +14) that they could lose to England and still take the title, unless the Irish beat Scotland by a considerable margin in Dublin.
But defence coach Dave Ellis has stressed that France will be highly motivated to complete the job having lost their last three major matches against England.
“The thing you’ve got to realise and the message we’ll pass onto the players is that we haven’t beaten England in a competitive game for four years now,” said Ellis, who also coaches at London Irish.
“The last time we beat them in the Six Nations was in 2006. Even though we won the two preparation games for the World Cup, they were just more or less friendly games.
“England beat us in the semi-final of the World Cup, they beat us in 2008 at Stade de France and we lost there heavily [34-10] last year. So there is a bit of history there that we need to put right.”
England will announce their team for the match at 1200 GMT on Wednesday.
France team: ClementPoitrenaud; Marc Andreu, Mathieu Bastareaud, Yannick Jauzion, Alexis Palisson; Francois Trinh-Duc, Morgan Parra; Thomas Domingo, William Servat, Nicolas Mas, Lionel Nallet, Julien Pierre, Thierry Dusautoir, Julien Bonnaire, Imanol Harinordoquy.
Replacements: Dimitri Szarzewski, Jean-Baptiste Poux, Sebastien Chabal, Alexandre Lapandry, Dimitri Yachvili, David Marty, Julien Malzieu.
[Info from BBC Sport]
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