Rugby Union: Five Nations Championship - Frozen France go for pace and verve

The French are having trouble with a frozen pitch, but not with team selection. The radical changes made to their side for Saturday's Five Nations' opener look certain to make things hot for England. Chris Hewett and John Lichfield report from Paris.

You might call it a multi-million franc coq-up. The Stade de France was under cover yesterday as claret-cheeked Parisians armed with 12 British industrial blowers worked around the clock to thaw its frozen surface in time for Saturday's Five Nations confrontation with the English.

By dusk, the pitch was still more suited to the triple salkow and double lutz than the eight-man shove, but hope springs eternal among the harassed Tricolores.

Stadium officials insisted that the kindly weather forecast for the next 36 hours or so made an embarrassing postponement increasingly unlikely, but their optimism did not stop Bernard Lapasset, the president of the French rugby federation, stamping his haute couture footwear in fury at the lack of precautions taken against a cold snap everyone knew was coming.

"I'm divided between anger and derision," he said, adding that the French coaches might consider putting an ice-skater on the bench, just in case.

"We're not looking to microwave the pitch... We'll be cooking it really slowly over the next 24 to 28 hours," said Nigel Felton of Sportstadia Services, the British firm brought in to rescue the game.

Success, however, may not mean that the French can rest easy. Stadium officials have admitted that there is a risk that the warming of the pitch, followed by 80 minutes of international rugby, will force the delicate turf to be replaced, at a cost of pounds 1m.

Since the relaying could not begin until the spring, there would be a risk that the playing surface would not be in peak condition for the opening match of football's World Cup between Scotland and Brazil on 10 June.

If England are anticipating a frosty reception from 80,000 Frenchmen on Saturday, it will be nowhere near as chilly as the one awaiting David McHugh. The Irish referee was called to duty yesterday when Derek Bevan of Wales, the original choice, failed a fitness test on an injured ankle.

Given that McHugh was the touchjudge who controversially flagged Yvan Manhes, the Brive second row, for obstruction in the dying seconds of last weekend's Heineken Cup final and thus presented Bath with the trophy, he can expect to have his parentage questioned from the moment he touches down in Paris.

Not that Jean-Claude Skrela and his fellow French coaches are wasting too much thought on whatever foibles and peculiarities McHugh may bring to the equation. They believe their new team - newer even than the Stade de France, which is precisely one football international old - has the pace, verve and Gallic brio to register a fourth successive victory over Les Rosbifs.

Skrela has made eight changes to the side thoroughly humiliated by a pie-hot Springbok outfit at the Parc des Princes in November and even though only Christophe Dominici, the Stade Francais left wing whose spectacular progress has made him the talk of the French domestic campaign, will be winning a first cap, there is a freshness to the line-up that has set a few alarm bells ringing on this side of the Channel.

"In a sense, the nature of the South African victory has rebounded on us," Clive Woodward, the England coach, said yesterday. "They have torn everything up, started again and picked a side that is bound to be a handful for us. It has youth, it has pace. In many ways, it is my kind of team."

Three tortured and tormented members of the defeated Brive side have been selected, although Philippe Carbonneau very nearly lost out to Fabien Galthie at scrum-half and Christophe Lamaison, whose goal-kicking nerve crumbled so spectacularly during injury time in Bordeaux, needed to pass the sporting equivalent of a psychiatric test before convincing the selectors of his emotional well-being.

But the most striking aspect of the side is to be found in the back five of the scrum, where both locks and the entire breakaway combination have played serious rugby at No 8, the thinking player's position. Thomas Lievremont of Perpignan has been given the rover's role, even though his single cap as a replacement against Wales two years ago makes him the least experienced internationalist of the quintet.

However, the emphasis is on intelligence, mobility and quality handling and if England fail to match the French in the wide areas of the field, they may find themselves in a whole lot of trouble.

FRANCE (v England, Stade de France, Saturday): J L Sadourny (Colomiers); P Bernat-Salles (Pau), C Lamaison (Brive), S Glas (Bourgoin), C Dominici (Stade Francais); T Castaignede (Castres), P Carbonneau (Brive); C Califano (Toulouse), R Ibanez (Dax, capt), F Tournaire (Toulouse); F Pelous (Toulouse), O Brouzet (Begles-Bordeaux); P Benetton (Agen), O Magne (Brive), T Lievremont (USAP). Replacements: F Galthie (Colomiers), D Aucagne (Pau), X Garbajosa (Toulouse), M Lievremont (Stade Francais), T Cleda (Pau), C Soulette (Beziers), M Dal Maso (Agen).