France to provide real test for England

France coach Bernard Laporte has made just one change from the team that thumped Romania last week to meet England in Marseille…

France coach Bernard Laporte has made just one change from the team that thumped Romania last week to meet England in Marseille on Saturday.

Biarritz's Nicolas Brusque replaces team mate Pepito Elhorga at fullback. Inspirational captain Fabien Galthie, who missed Wednesday's training session with a slight thigh injury, was named in the side.

Laporte, unveiling his squad for the first of the back-to-back games against England, said he will completely reshuffle his team for the second test at Twickenham next week. "We stay with an almost unchanged line-up for Saturday's match but it's going to be a completely different team which is going to play next week," Laporte said.

"We want to see all the 30 guys playing in these two games. Those who are not starting in Marseille will play at Twickenham."

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Laporte said he is considering the next two warm-up matches as the perfect opportunity to test the physical and mental strength of his squad. England, after a successful southern hemisphere tour in June with wins over New Zealand and world champions Australia, are one of the favourites for the World Cup.

England have also won four of their last five matches against France including a 25-17 victory at Twickenham in February, en route to the Grand Slam in the Six Nations.

"We know that preparing for the World Cup is a tough challenge," Laporte said. "But we have a great faith in the guys. We have 30 players who are all capable (of) playing at the same level. "England are still in a pre-selection situation. They have brought 43 players there and they still have choices to make to cut down their list to 30 names. We don't. We know where we are going."

Laporte's approach differed significantly from the one adopted by England coach Clive Woodward, who named another experimental team for the match, the second of three ahead of the World Cup for the Six Nations champions.

Woodward made 10 changes from the second-string team which crushed Wales 43-9 in Cardiff last week.

"I've kept a lot of the forwards who played against Wales on Saturday and most notably Dorian West will captain the side for the first time," Woodward said from England's training base in Aix-En-Provence in the south of France on Tuesday.

However, loose forward Joe Worsley has withdrawn from side because of an ankle injury. Number eight Worsley twisted his ankle in training on Wednesday and was replaced in the starting line-up by Sale's Alex Sanderson with Gloucester's uncapped flanker Andy Hazell moving onto the bench.

France: 15-Nicolas Brusque; 14-Aurelien Rougerie, 13-Yannick Jauzion, 12-Damien Traille, 11-Christophe Dominici; 10-Frederic Michalak, 9-Fabien Galthie (captain); 8-Imanol Harinordoquy, 7-Olivier Magne, 6-Serge Betsen; 5-Jerome Thion, 4-Fabien Pelous; 3-Sylvain Marconnet, 2-Yannick Bru, 1-Jean-Jacques Crenca. Replacements: 16-Raphael Ibanez, 17-Olivier Milloud, 18-David Auradou, 19-Sebastien Chabal, 20-Patrick Tabacco, 21-Xavier Garbajosa, 22-Brian Liebenberg.

England: 15-Iain Balshaw; 14-Josh Lewsey, 13-Ollie Smith, 12-Mike Tindall, 11-Ben Cohen; 10-Paul Grayson, 9-Austin Healey; 8- Alex Sanderson 7-Lewis Moody, 6-Martin Corry, 5-Danny Grewcock, 4-Steve Borthwick, 3-Julian White, 2-Dorian West (captain), 1-Graham Rowntree. Replacements: 16-Steve Thompson, 17-Jason Leonard, 18-Simon Shaw, 19- Andy Hazell, 20-Andy Gomarsall, 21-Dave Walder, 22-Jamie Noon.