News
Preview: Sale v Montauban
December 04 2008
Sale are looking a little unsteady going into their third Heineken Cup match against Montauban on Friday.
Rumours have been confirmed that Director of Rugby Philippe Saint Andre will leave the club at the end of the year. Kingpin Sebastian Chabal is also expected to depart of saying he wishes to return to France next year.
On the pitch, neither Andrew Sheridan nor Mathew Tait are fit enough to start the match and both are on the bench. Dwayne Peel is promoted to the starting line-up ahead of Richard Wigglesworth, and Andy Tuilagi replaces Tait.
"We have had two good results, back to back, with wins over Wasps and Leicester and we are now keen to do well against Montauban tomorrow evening and next week in the return game," said Saint Andre.
"Although we lost to Munster we picked up a valuable win and bonus point with our win in Clermont and we are looking to qualify for the quarter-final stages. It will be tough though as Montauban ran both Munster and Clermont very close and we are expecting a very physical game tomorrow."
Meanwhile, Montauban have rested a number of their top players. Fijian try-scoring machine Vilimoni Delasau will not make the journey to England, nor will lock Karim Ghezal or loose forward Marc Raynaud.
Stalwart full-back Fabien Fortassin will ride the bench while hooker Grégory Arganese will play his first match of the season after recovering from a shoulder operation.
Scottish international lock Scott Murray will lead the side.
Form: Sale arrested a slump during November with victories at Wasps and at home to Leicester, taking them fifth in the Guinness Premiership. Montauban are on a run of two defeats, one of them at home, and have fallen off the pace in the Top 14.
The teams:
Sale: 15 Rory Lamont, 14 Mark Cueto, 13 Andy Tuilagi, 12 Luke McAlister, 11 David Doherty, 10 Charlie Hodgson, 9 Dwayne Peel, 8 Juan Manuel Fernandez Lobbe, 7 Neil Briggs, 6 Jason White, 5 Dean Schofield, 4 Sebastien Chabal, 3 Eifion Roberts, 2 Marc Jones, 1 Lionel Faure.
Replacements: 16 Andrew Sheridan, 17 Stuart Turner, 18 Brent Cockbain, 19 Carl Fearns, 20 Richard Wigglesworth, 21 Chris Bell, 22 Mathew Tait.
Montauban: 15 Johan Dalla Riva, 14 Adrien Figueiredo, 13 Miguel Avramovic, 12 Shannon Paku, 11 Jean Emmanuel Cassin, 10 Cédric Rosalen, 9 Fabrice Culinat, 8 Fabrice Soldan, 7 Matthew Clarkin, 6 Antoine Battut, 5 Rowan Frost, 4 Scott Murray (c), 3 Nick Adams, 2 Grégory Arganese, 1 Laurent DelBoulbes
Replacements: 16 Brice Mach, 17 Bogdan Balan, 18 Benjamin Sa, 19 Matthias Rolland, 20 Ibrahim Diarra, 21 Sylvain Jonnet, 22 Fabien Fortassin.
Date: Friday December 5
Venue: Edgeley Park
Kick-off: 19.45 GMT
Referee: Peter Fitzgibbon (Ireland)