Mazars on French centre stage
Wed, 23 Jun 2010 08:43
Forcing his way in: French centre Lionel Mazars
France coach Marc Lievremont has made seven changes to the French team that will face Argentina in a one-off Test in Buenos Aires on Saturday.
Bayonne centre Lionel Mazars makes his international debut, while Perpignan fullback Jerome Porical starts a Test for the first time.
In their last outing on June 12, Six Nations champions France were soundly beaten 42-17 by world champions South Africa.
France picked up the pace with a convincing win over Argentina A last Friday, but Lievremont has not hidden his disappointment with the performance in Cape Town by ringing the changes among the backs.
Apart from the introduction of Mazars and Porical for Maxime Mermoz and Clement Poitrenaud respectively, Lievremont has also replaced the other centre David Marty with Florian Fritz, while wing Aurelien Rougerie drops to the bench to make way for Clermont teammate Julien Malzieu.
"We were pretty disappointed by a number of the threequarters [against South Africa]. The Fritz-Mazars centre pairing deserved a chance to show us what they can do at this higher level.
"Jerome Porical and Julien Malzieu played very well on Friday [against Argentina A] with lots of vigour and enthusiasm", said Lievremont who retains the halfback combination of Morgan Parra and Francois Trinh-Duc.
He has made three changes in the pack, one of them enforced by the injury to back row forward Wenceslas Lauret.
Louis Picamoles comes in at No.8 with Julien Bonnaire moving to the flank.
Prop Thomas Domingo is replaced by Toulouse loosehead Fabian Barcella while Stade Français lock comes in for Romain Millo-Chluski.
"The forwards, notably Thomas and Romain are paying a little bit now for a very long season," said Lievremont.
France: 15 Jerome Porical, 14 Vincent Clerc, 13 Florian Fritz, 12 Lionel Mazars, 11 Julien Malzieu, 10 Francois Trinh-Duc, 9 Morgan Parra, 8 Louis
Picamoles, 7 Julien Bonnaire, 6 Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 5 Lionel Nallet, 4 Pascal Pape, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Dimitri Szarzewski, 1 Fabian Barcella.
Replacements: 16 Guillem Guirado, 17 Jean-Baptiste Poux, 18 Julien Pierre, 19 Gregory Lamboley, 20 Dimitri Yachvili, 21 David Skrela, 22 Aurelien Rougerie.
Date: Saturday, June 26
Venue: José Amalfitani Stadium, Buenos Aires
Kick-off: 15.45 (18.45 GMT)
Referee: Stuart Dickinson (Australia)
Assistant referees: Dave Pearson (England), Jaco Peyper (South Africa)
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