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07th Mar 2013

Here’s the French team we have to face on Saturday

With all the fuss over our own team, we almost forgot about the French side. We say almost because here it is.

JOE

With all the fuss over our own team, we almost forgot about the French side. We say almost because here it is.

And you thought we had some issues at No 10. Despite his fairly disastrous cameo at the end of the England game, Philipe Saint-Andre has handed Freddie Michalek the job of out-half for the game in the Aviva on Saturday.

That means that Francois Trinh-Duc, who looked to us to have had a more than decent game at Twickenham, heads to the bench. Morgan Parra stays at nine but there are a few more tweaks by the French.

Mathieu Bastareaud goes to the bench, with Florian Fritz partnering Wesley Fofana in the centre while Maxime Medard comes in on the wing for Bernard Fall.

The French pack remains the same, and looks as strong as ever with the likes of Picamoles and Dusautoir.

From an Irish perspective, the inclusion of Michalek should be good news but if Freddie has one of his good days in Dublin, we could be very sorry.

15-Yoann Huget, 14-Vincent Clerc, 13-Florian Fritz, 12-Wesley Fofana, 11-Maxime Medard, 10-Frederic Michalak, 9-Morgan Parra, 8-Louis Picamoles, 7-Thierry Dusautoir, 6-Yannick Nyanga, 5-Yoann Maestri, 4-Christophe Samson, 3-Nicolas Mas, 2-Benjamin Kayser, 1-Thomas Domingo.

Replacements: 16-Guilhem Guirado, 17-Vincent Debaty, 18-Luc Ducalcon, 19-Sebastien Vahaamahina, 20-Antonie Claassen, 21-Maxime Machenaud, 22-Francois Trinh-Duc, 23-Mathieu Bastareaud

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