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Nyanga to lead Les Bleus

French coach Phillipe Saint-Andre has made a number of changes to his side that lost to New Zealand 23-13 including selecting loose forward Yannick Nyanga as his captain  when they take on the Blues in Albany on Tuesday.

The French put up an incredibly spirited effort over the weekend and proved that their Six Nations campaign was well and truly behind them when they fought hard but eventually went down  to a much fancied All Black side.

The backline has been changed around considerably and there is only one survivor in the starting XV – Maxime Médard makes the shift from wing to fullback. There are a lot of fairly unknown players making up the rest of the backline with Maxime Mermoz the most recognisable face amongst the backs.

Yannick Nyanga, who came off the bench on Saturday, will lead the team from the side of the scrum. South African born Anonie Claassen and Bernard Le Roux join the skipper in the back row which provides them with a completely fresh loose trio.

There are no survivors amongst the tight five as veteran prop Nicolas Mas comes into the tighthead position. Guilem Guirado will start at hooker after he came off the bench against New Zealand on Saturday. Alexandre Flanquart came on from the last ten minutes on Saturday and will be hoping that he can produce a performance good enough to get a look in at a starting role against the All Blacks over the weekend.

As it is a tour match the French are giving all the fringe players a run and the bench consists of three players that did not feature over the weekend in the form of Benjamin Kayser, Damien Chouly and Brice Dulin.

France: 15 Maxime Médard, 14 Noa Nakaitaci, 13 Gael Fickou, 12 Maxime Mermoz, 11 Marc Andreu, 10 Rémi Tales, 9 Jean-Marc Doussain, 8 Antonie Claassen, 7 Bernard Le Roux, 6 Yannick Nyanga (captain), 5 Alexandre Flanquart, 4 Christophe Samson, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Guilhem Guirado, 1 Eddy Ben Arous.

Replacements: 16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Vincent Debaty, 18 Daniel Kotze, 19 Sébastien Vahaamahina, 20 Damien Chouly, 21 Frédéric Michalak, 22 Camille Lopez, 23 Brice Dulin.

 

Date: Tuesday, June 11

Venue: North Harbour Stadium, Albany

Kick-off: 19.05 (09.05 French Time; 07.05 GMT)

Referee: Jaco Peyper (South Africa)

Assistant referees: Richard Kelly (New Zealand), Shane McDermott (New Zealand)

TMO: Glenn Newman (New Zealand)

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