France make two changes for England clash

| Wednesday October 5, 2011 00:00

The France coach, Marc Lievremont, announced his quarter-final squad on Tuesday, the first of the eight teams to be released.

He made the two changes to his forward pack, but retained the same back line which started in last weekend's shocking 19-14 loss to Tonga, meaning Morgan Parra remains as a makeshift fly-half with Franois Trinh-Duc on the bench.

Mas missed the Tonga match with a hamstring strain but has been recalled in preference to the prop Luc Ducalcon, while Harinordoquy was promoted from the bench to replace Rapha‘l Lakafia. 'I'm fine now, I was scared of returning to France, but the injury's healed well,' Mas said. 'Of course I will be lacking in rhythm, but given the context of the match you have to overlook that and rise above it.

'I don't think you can call me a saviour because that would mean Luc didn't do his job, which isn't the case.'Ducalcon and Lakafia were not included in the 22-man match squad. David Marty returns to the reserve bench to replace the centre Fabrice Estebanez, who was banned for three weeks by a disciplinary panel on Monday for a dangerous tackle in the match against Tonga.

France have been in disarray amid regular reports of tension between Livremont and his players, and only just managed to scrape into the knockout rounds with wins over Japan and Canada before a loss to top-ranked New Zealand and a stunning defeat to Tonga to finish second in Pool A.

Livremont has been uncertain over team selection, with Parra playing at No10 despite limited Test experience in that position, and changing his No8 three times in five matches.

'I'm very happy to be in the team, I was quite frustrated to be a reserve,' Harinordoquy said. 'We have to stop asking questions of ourselves now and go for it because the French team plays well when it stops asking questions.' England have won four of the last five head-to-head encounters, and have the upper hand in World Cups, knocking France out of the last two semi-finals. (Guardian)