Sale putting out basically our strongest available side for tomorrow (Cipriani starting would make it full strength taking in to account injuries).
Tony: how far off first XV is the Biarritz side? To my untrained eye it looks very strong.
1 - Fabien BARCELLA 2 - Jean-Philippe GENEVOIS 3 - Benedict BROSTER 4 - Erik Lund 5 - Joshua FURNO 6 - Benoit Guyot 7 - Magnus LUND 8 - Imanol Harinordoquy (c.) 9 - Yann Lesgourgues 10 - Julien PEYRELONGUE 11 - Teddy THOMAS 12 - Seremaia BUROTU 13 - Charles Gimenez 14 - Takudzwa NGWENYA 15 - Johan Pietersen 16 - Arnaud HEGUY 17 - Thomas Synaeghel 18 - Francisco GOMEZ KODELA 19 - Mathias MARIE 20 - Alban PLACINES 21 - Dimitri Yachvili 22 - Geoffrey Sella 23 - Paul COUET-LANNES
Barcella (little more than a squad player these days), Genevois (watch his throwing!!), Harinordoquuy (past it and been injured), Perylongue (great heart and passion but not a 10 and kicking is very flaky) Buroto (good with ball in hand until tackled when very prone to lose it and poor defensively), Pietersen (perhaps on wing but not at full back where he is poor at the high ball and worse tackling) would not be anywhere near my 1st team.
Heguy would be hooker, Furno would be a back rower instead of Magnus Lund (who has only played one game this season and a handful in the last two) and Taele/Marie would be playing with one of them or Lockely on the bench, Lakafia and Brew should be in the squad at the very least. Thomas who is speedy and as good as Brew deserves to play but is raw and needs some game time to mature into potentiually a great player.
Waenga would be my 10 with Baby in the centre (making one of the smallest centre partnerships in the world) and Balshaw/Couet Lannes at 15 because at least they can tackel!!
However, Balshaw, Taele, Waenga and Baby are all injured......along with Dubarry who would certainly be in the 23 also!
I am still of the view that Sale, with a full strength squad, should be disappointed not to put a 20 points difference between them and this BO team who, I am sure with have plenty of heart and spirit but will tire in the last 30 minutes and have little to offer on the bench other than Yach!!!
