France recall Pelous for Argentina test

20 Nov, 2006

France recalled captain Fabien Pelous to their squad for next Saturday's game against Argentina conditional on his recovering fully from a rib injury.
The Toulouse lock was injured in the first test against New Zealand, which France lost 47-3 two weeks ago and he missed the second test, which the All Blacks won 23-11 on Saturday.
His return is the only change from the squad selected for the second test.
Scrumhalf Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, who suffered a calf injury and left the field 26 minutes into the second test, also stays in the squad pending a scan.
If he does not get the green light, he will be replaced by Pierre Mignoni.
"The players had a good reaction during the week between the two tests against New Zealand. We lost but our players stood up to them in the second test and revived some hope for the World Cup," coach Bernard Laporte told journalists.
"We didn't make a lot of changes to our squad for the second test but we changed seven players from the starting XV. Depending on the condition of some players, we'll proably do the same thing when we name the team on Wednesday," he added.
The France coach said the Argentina test was as important as the two games against New Zealand.
"Those two tests were a good opportunity to size ourselves up against the best team in the world. It was good to face them with 10 months to go to the World Cup. We now know that we have a lot of work to do. It's exciting," he said.
"Now, we have to focus on the Pumas, who will be our opponents in the opening game of the 2007 World Cup," he added.
"They are on a streak of four wins against us. They have won the first two tests of their November tour in England and in Italy. They are a very competitive team. We'll approach Saturday's match with a lot of respect." Argentina defeated England 25-18 two weeks ago, recording their first win at Twickenham, and overcame Italy 23-16 on Saturday.
Squad:
FORWARDS: Pieter De Villiers, Sylvain Marconnet, Olivier Milloud, Raphael Ibanez, Dimitri Szarzewski, Pascal Pape, Fabien Pelous, Lionel Nallet, Loic Jacquet, Julien Bonnaire, Serge Betsen, Remy Martin, Elvis Vermeulen.
BACKS: Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, Dimitri Yachvili, Damien Traille, Florian Fritz, Yannick Jauzion, David Marty, Christophe Dominici, Cedric Heymans, Aurelien Rougerie, Pepito Elhorga.

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