France drop Magne for Cardiff game
MARCOUSSIS, France, (Reuters) -- France have dropped open side flanker Olivier Magne and reshuffled their back row for Sunday's Six Nations championship match against Wales in Cardiff.
Magne, who has won 74 caps, has been replaced by Thomas Lievremont who will start at number eight. Imanol Harinordoquy moves to the side of the scrum.
"Thomas has played several very good games with Biarritz since the beginning of the year," said coach Bernard Laporte.
"We have told Magne that it wasn't a question of setting him aside and that he would come on for the half hour of the game and maybe earlier.
"We also told him we wanted to field in-form players as a club would do and he accepted it. The arrival of Lievremont and Harinordoquy's move to number seven will give us more power."
Harinordoquy has played twice as a flanker in 24 internationals, against Argentina and New Zealand in June 2003.
Lievremont, 30, has won 23 caps, the first one against Wales on November 6, 1996, the last as a starting player in April 2000 against Italy. He was not a member of the 2003 World Cup squad but was recalled for the 2004 Six Nations championships and came on as a substitute for Magne in France's wins over Ireland and Italy last month.
Michalak Returns
In the only other change to the team who beat Italy 25-0 two weeks ago at the Stade de France, Frederic Michalak has been reinstated at flyhalf after recovering from a chest injury.
Michalak will share goal kicking duties with scrumhalf Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, his team mate at Stade Toulousain.
"It's up to them to decide who is going to kick," Laporte said. "Jean-Baptiste didn't want to assume goal kicking for his debut against Ireland but he did well against Italy."
Laporte said he was confident that center Damien Traille would recover from a leg injury he suffered last Saturday in a French championship match.
"Damien had a scan that showed it was just a bruising. He will have a physical test on Friday but he should be okay and we have decided not to call a possible replacement," he added.
Team manager Jo Maso said France would travel to Cardiff "with complete respect for the Welsh."
"They are on the up since the World Cup. They stood up to England in the quarter-final and nearly defeated them. They lost in Dublin two weeks ago but they probably had a bad day and we must not forget that playing at the Millennium is never an easy task."
France: Nicolas Brusque; Vincent Clerc, Damien Traille, Yannick Jauzion, Christophe Dominici; Frederic Michalak, Jean-Baptiste Elissalde; Thomas Lievremont, Imanol Harinordoquy, Serge Betsen, Pascal Pape, Fabien Pelous capt, Pieter De Villiers, William Servat , Sylvain Marconnet.
Replacements: Yannick Bru, Jean-Jacques Crenca, David Auradou, Olivier Magne, Dimitri Yachvili, Brian Liebenberg, Cedric Heymans.
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