France make one change to face Wales

France head coach Philippe Saint-Andre has made one change to his starting XV for their trip to Cardiff on Friday with Wanceslas Lauret starting at openside.
The Racing Metro flanker takes over from his club teammate Bernard Le Roux who suffered a concussion against Italy in the last round.
There are three changes on the replacement bench though with Castres hooker Brice Mach likely to make his Test debut at the Millennium.
The French scrum could be in trouble in the second half however with only Nicolas Mas as a specialist tighthead. Indeed, Saint-Andre has decided to call on Clermont‘s Vincent Debaty to replace Rabah Slimani who is suspended after his red card against Italy.
Finally, Top14 winning fly-half Remi Tales has recovered from his arm injury and takes the place of Francois Trinh-Duc as Jules Plisson’s cover.
France are still unbeaten in this campaign having beaten England and Italy in the first two rounds while Wales must win if they want to have any hopes of securing their third title in three years following their poor display in Ireland.
Saint-Andre said: “Vincent played all of the 2012 Autumn Tests at tighthead. He grew up as a tighthead. Honestly, I can tell you that after Tuesday’s scrum session he showed a lot of good things. We trust him and his quality as an impact player.
“We know Wales’ strength. They like to run hard in the fly-half channel with their powerful centres. That’s why we decided to have another fly-half on the bench to back up Jules Plisson because it’s going to hurt. The intensity on Friday will be unusually high. We were blamed for using the driving maul too much last year but we won’t win in Cardiff doing that for 80 minutes.
“With New Zealand, Wales are the most attacking side from lineouts. They like to keep the ball with long phases so we needed a genuine openside to slow them down. Thierry Dusautoir is injured so having Wanceslas back is a logic choice for us.”
France: Brice Dulin; Yoann Huget, Mathieu Bastareaud, Wesley Fofana, Hugo Bonneval; Jules Plisson, Jean-Marc Doussain; Thomas Domingo, Dimitri Szarzewski, Nicolas Mas; Pascal Papé (Capt.), Yoann Maestri; Yannick Nyanga, Wanceslas Lauret, Louis Picamoles.
Replacements: Brice Mach, Yannick Forestier, Vincent Debaty, Sebastien Vahaamahina, Damien Chouly, Maxime Machenaud, Remi Tales, Gael Fickou.