France back Damien Traille has been named on the bench for Sunday's World Cup final against New Zealand in Auckland.

Coach Marc Lievremont had already named an unchanged side during the week following the victories over England and Wales.

He confirmed his bench on Friday and Traille's selection means there is only one alteration among the replacements.

Traille was dropped after being taken off at half-time of the pool defeat by the All Blacks last month and had given up hope of playing again.

"I didn't hold out much hope of being in the squad, especially since Marc had made it clear after the quarter-final that he was looking for stability," said the 32-year-old, who replaces Cedric Heymans.

"But now I have the ultimate satisfaction of being in the final. I showed a lot of commitment in training every week and I wanted to show I deserved a place, even though the squad had seemed to be set in place until the end.

"Now I've got my reward."

France team: Maxime Medard; Vincent Clerc, Aurelien Rougerie, Maxime Mermoz, Alexis Palisson; Morgan Parra, Dimitri Yachvili; Jean-Baptiste Poux, William Servat, Nicolas Mas, Pascal Pape, Lionel Nallet, Thierry Dusautoir (captain), Julien Bonnaire, Imanol Harinordoquy.

Replacements: Dimitri Szarzewski, Fabien Barcella, Julien Pierre, Fulgence Ouedraogo, Jean-Marc Doussain, Francois Trinh-Duc, Damien Traille.

 

 

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