Rougerie to miss Lansdowne clash

Eoin

From eircom.net news

Is Rougerie the huge blond fella who treated Shane Williams like a speed bump?

Imanol Harinordoquy is a casualty of France's poor performance against Wales last weekend as coach Bernard Laporte has dropped the number eight for the Six Nations clash with Ireland at Lansdowne Road.

Harinordoquy is one of three changes made by the coach ahead of their trip to Dublin for the game on March 12th. Bourgoin lock Pascal Pape has recovered from a sprained ankle and will replace Harinordoquy.

Winger Cedric Heymans and centre Ludovic Valbon have also been named in the squad ahead of Aurelien Rougerie, who is recovering from a sternum injury, while Valbon has been preferred to Jean-Philippe Grandclaude.

France must defeat Ireland, who remain on course to win the Grand Slam for the first time since 1948, to keep alive their hopes of retaining the Six Nations trophy.

Laporte will announce his starting line-up next Tuesday.

France Squad:

Forwards: Sylvain Marconnet, Nicolas Mas, Olivier Milloud, Sebastien Bruno, William Servat, Gregory Lamboley, Fabien Pelous, Jerome Thion, Pascal Pape, Serge Betsen, Julien Bonnaire, Yannick Nyanga.

Backs: Pierre Mignoni, Dimitri Yachvili, Yann Delaigue, Frederic Michalak, Yannick Jauzion, Damien Traille, Christophe Dominici, Cedric Heymans, Julien Laharrague, Ludovic Valbon.

Downtime

That'd be him.

Eoin

I would be quite glad to see him off the team then - I thought he was very impressive (although Williams may have made him looked better than he is?)

Nope, he had an excellent game, is an excellent player, Kind of glad that he's not playing next week!

Eoin

he had an excellent game alright, but I think Williams is quite poor in the tackle compared to Dempsey or Hickie. Still good to see a bruiser like that not being available though

Imanol Harinordoquy is a casualty of France's poor performance against Wales last weekend as coach Bernard Laporte has dropped the number eight for the Six Nations clash with Ireland at Lansdowne Road.

I thought Harinordoquy only came off the bench against Wales anyway?

RuggieBear

well that's my fantasy team ****ed again.....

Sangre

I wouldn't have called France's game could.

On Rougeries performance, I think he had a very good game made better by Shane Williams poor tackle attempts. Glad he is out for our sake.

Nukem

RuggieBear wrote:

well that's my fantasy team ****ed again.....

Thank f*ck for that i thought id never catch ya. LOL
Dont think we would have had a problem - just stick shaggy on the wing and ask him to stop shaving again for a week. Like running into a fuzzy brick wall.

pickarooney

eoin_s wrote:

I thought Harinordoquy only came off the bench against Wales anyway?

I'm pretty sure he did.

[Jackass]

Rougerie is a fantastic, Lomu stlye winger, which is why the small fry of williams couldn't handle him to save his life...but would have been a different story against Hickie. Still though, we're better off with him not playing though. One of Frances best backs imo, and deffenatly a bigger loss to France than shaggy is to us with his thumb. As long as their are no more injuries (touch wood), we should have a full compliment in the back line in Cardiff!! This France game cant come soon enough for me (as long as D'Arcy is fit), i think we'll win comfortably enough, if you consider 6 - 9 points comfortable.

Trojan

I'll consider 1 point comfortable so long as the final whistle has blown.

I think the French will potentially give us a more difficult game than the Welsh, and I'm happy to see Rougerie out - he's extremely dangerous.