France keeping strict checks on injuries to first choices players ahead of encounter against All Blacks
France’s national Rugby Union team is keeping a vigilant eye on the fitness of their first choice players as the rest of the squad kick start their preparations for their biggest game of the tournament against the World Number One team, All Blacks.
France and New Zealnd are placed at the first and second position with 10 points each in their pool. The Saturday, September 24 encounter between the All Blacks and France will be the third match of the tournament for both sides. All Blacks will host the
Les Bleus at Eden Park, Auckland in what is promising to be a great match.
France have rested their first choice duo of winger Vincent Clerc and front row forward William Servat, during their maiden training session for their All Blacks encounter. Les Bleus maiden training session was held on Tuesday, September 20.
France’s head coach, Marc Lièvremont, has expressed his confidence that his first choice backs and forwards players, named in their match day squad for the All Blacks encounter, will be fully fit to participate in their crunch weekend encounter.
Lièvremont added that the pair of Clerc and Servat was sidelined from training as a precautionary measure. Clerc and Servat sustained an injury to the thigh and ankle respectively, in France vs. Canada encounter played on Sunday, September 18 at Mclean Park,
Napier.
Besides this, France’s Nicolas Mas and Alexis Palisson were also rested from Tuesday’s training session. The duo has not been selected for France’s All Blacks encounter because Mas is struggling with a hamstring strain while Palisson is still recovering
from a back problem.
Lièvremont has expressed his confidence that the duo will attain full fitness by the time of France’s last pool game against Tonga.
All Blacks and Les Bleus has developed a unique rivalry as the later has twiced thrown the New Zeland squad out of the global tournament. Notoriously, the Les Blues defeated All Blacks in the semi-final of the 1999 Rugby World Cup. Eight years later, France
again denied New Zealand the chance to play for the Rugby crown as they defeated New Zealand in the quarter-finals of the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
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