Backs: Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, Morgan Parra, Francois Trin-Dhuc, David Skrela, Florian Fritz, Damien Traille, Vincent Clerc, Julien Malzieu, Cedric Heymans, Aurelien Rougerie.
Forwards: Julien Brugnaut, Lionel Faure, Jean-Baptiste Poux, William Servat, Dimitri Szarzewski, Loic Jacquet, Lionel Nallet, Arnaud Mela, Julien Bonnaire, Thierry Dusautoir, Fulgence Ouedraogo, Elvis Vermeulen.
New French coach Marc Lievremont announced his first squad, full of Frenchmen I have never heard of, despite watching a stupid amount of Heineken Cup rugby over the last few weekends. Looks like Elissalde is annointed at scrum half, but the Number 10 debate looks no nearer to being settled. Poitrenaud is for me one of the key omissions in the backs – but then he never got a chance in the World Cup, either. People’s champion Chabal being left out will also be pretty controversial in France. Still, maybe he’s following a time-honoured tradition amongst the French coaching nobility and will change his mind/team/shorts at the last moment. Maybe Betsen retiring was all a rumour as well…
So I’m no nearer to getting a picture on which France team turns up at Murrayfield on the 3rd. Which is, perhaps, the point.
