Six Nations News – Pelous To Lead France

Veteran lock Fabien Pelous is to take over from the
retired Fabien Galthie as France captain in this season’s Six Nations Championship even though he is unlikely to play in the opener against Ireland on February 14th.

Pelous told l’Equipe sports daily he had accepted head coach
Bernard
Laporte’s offer to skipper the side but said his twisted left knee
would
probably keep him out of the Ireland match.

“I don’t want to rush anything,” he said. “I’m here
for the long term.”

The 30-year-old Toulouse player, capped 86 times, has already said
he wants
to carry on to the 2007 World Cup.

Pelous captained France 15 times between 1997 and 2002 and took
over from
Galthie when the scrum-half was injured for the last three matches of
the 2003
Six Nations.

Laporte and his selectors meet on February 3 to name their Six
Nations
squad when they will have to tackle a second-row injury crisis.

Pelous, Olivier Brouzet, recovering from a collarbone operation,
David
Auradou, carrying a calf strain, and Jerome Thion, suffering from an
Achilles
tendon injury, are all doubtful for the Ireland match.

Meanwhile, Lewis Moody will miss England’s opening two
Six
Nations championship matches after the flanker sustained a stress
fracture to
his foot.

The Leicester flanker, who stood in for Richard Hill for the
opening World
Cup matches when Hill was recovering from injury, will miss the
February 15th
match in Italy and the Feb 21st match against Scotland at Murrayfield.
The World Cup winner should be back in contention for the Ireland
match at
Twickenham March 6.

Moody, 25, has won 24 England caps, the last as a replacement in
November’s
World Cup final victory over Australia.

Head coach Clive Woodward’s injury list also includes Jonny
Wilkinson and
centres Mike Catt, Mike Tindall and Ollie Smith.

All bar Wilkinson are doubtful for the Six Nations, but Stuart
Abbott
returns to action this weekend for London Wasps after a month-long
lay-off.