Jo Maso Quotations

We decided to rely on the players who gave us full satisfaction in November against South Africa and Australia when they were available.

Olivier was not catastrophic against the English but he was responsible for three of the penalties the referee awarded against us. When he gets too wound up it's a bad time so it's time for a look at the (others).

I would rate our performance as average plus, but this average plus performance leaves us with a positive balance sheet.

Frederic has been in pain for a month but he has played very good games with Toulouse in the Heineken Cup and the French championship and we are confident he will be at his best.

He's given us all the guarantees of a good recovery.

That was our main objective because the 2007 World Cup will be played in France and we want to keep our home advantage inviolate until the final.

We have won 13 out of 15 matches in the tournament in three years, we are unbeaten at home in seven matches since last November and we have beaten the tries record.

To go out as captain of the side that won the World Cup showed his real worth as a player, and he was respected by everyone in France.

We prefer to keep managing it (the strain). Frederic wanted to train from Wednesday morning but we prefer to hold him back.

We preferred to leave the group in place to let them continue working in peace.

We will count on the team from November but competition still exists within the group and that's for the best.

We wanted to select him in July and in November but he was ruled out through injuries. We are glad to give him a new opportunity to prove his worth.

We knew from the beginning that the championship could be more open than the previous years and that the strongest challenge would come from England.

We just talked to Thomas, he said he had fully recovered and would play at the weekend with his Saracens club. Thomas made a brilliant comeback in November. He can play at fly-half, centre or full-back - for the time being we think of him as a full-back.

We expect him to be fit but we don't want him to pass it on to the other guys.

We are very happy to have won three matches so far, and to be unbeaten at Stade de France. But we must remember that we must at all costs win this tournament.

We are of course sorry for Thomas because he made a great comeback in November but he pulled a thigh muscle on Saturday in the Heineken Cup match against Biarritz. We talked to him this morning and he told us he should be fit again in two weeks.

Florian badly bruised his left knee in a French championship match with his Toulouse club on Saturday. He had a scan today and doctors decided that he should be exempted from training until Wednesday. We'll see then if he has recovered.

The team had a very good second half against the Italians, and we want to continue to forge ahead to beat the English.

Defeating Ireland is no mean thing. The main thing was to win. It's our first match at home this season and we said we wanted to stay unbeaten at home until the 2007 World Cup which will be played in France. We are still on course.

It's true there hasn't been too much change, but there were four interesting matches in November. We have to continue in this line.

The return of Fabien is pure logic. He's our captain and he proved with Toulouse in the Heineken Cup that he was fully fit.

If we called him up it's because he is capable of playing. We did not want to rest him for the first match. We've always said that if we had to choose between a regular first-team member who is at 80% of his physical potential and his replacement who is at 100%, we would take the latter.

Christophe was injured in November. He is one of our best wings. We want to win the Six Nations because it's a true competition and we want to field the best players available.

If he plays and he's not at 100 per cent, the injury will worsen. We need to have guarantees and not take any risks.

The case of Martin is less serious. He has a fever, but he is under treatment and was feeling better today and we hope he will resume training tomorrow.

The first match of the tournament is always tricky. The players have not played together for a long time.