France’s World Cup Rugby Team

Not an easy job for Bernard Laporte to pick the 30 players that will represent France in the Rugby Wolrd Cup. I don’t pretend to be a Rugby sports fan, but the fact that the finals will be played on Paris turf this September is already enough to get me interested - I was surprised to see that a number of Paris residents stopped by Aujourdhui news reporters appeared to be less interested. Some didn’t know when the games would begin (September 7th, France will play Argentina at the Stade de France.

The team will spend five weeks of training (July 3 to Augut 3 including high altitude training at Vald’Isere and Font Remeu) Then they go to Marcoussis (6th of August to 31st) for three matches ‘amicaux’.

Paris, Toulouse and Biarritz are well represented among the 30 players (Stade de France, Stade Toulousain, Biarritz. I also noted that of the thirty players, there are seven players over 30 years old including Sale Club’s Ibanez and Sebastien Bruno.
Here’s the line up for France:
Stade Francais:

* L. Beauxis
* S. Betsen
* J. Bonnaire
* S. Bruno
* S. Chabal
* V. Clerc
* P. de Villiers
* C. Dominici
* T. Dusautoir
* J. Elissalde
* I. Harinordoquy
* C. Heymans
* R. Ibanez
* Y. Jauzion
* S. Marconnet (as of yesterday August 23, it looks like Marconnet will not be sitting out the World Cup)
* R. Martin
* D. Marty
* F. Michalak
* P. Mignoni
* O. Milloud
* L. Nallet
* Y. Nyanga
* F. Pelous
* C. Poitrenaud
* J. Poux
* A. Rougerie
* D. Skrela
* D. Szarzewski
* J. Thion
* D. Traille