Montauban v Sale: Teams

At Stade Sapiac, Saturday December 13, kick-off 6pm

Last updated: 12th December 2008

Montauban v Sale: Teams

Tait: Starting at full-back

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Sale Sharks have named England international duo Andrew Sheridan and Mathew Tait in their starting XV to face Montauban.

Sheridan returns to the starting line up for his first start since playing in Sharks' defeat at London Irish in October.

Mathew Tait also starts at full-back, in place of the injured Rory Lamont and Luke Abraham returns after injury.

Victory for the Sharks would see them take another giant step towards qualifying from Pool One and securing their place in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals.

Director of rugby Philippe Saint Andre said, "We are under no illusion that Friday evening's game will be much tougher than last weeks win over Montauban.

"They may have lost their opening three games but there is a lot of pride at stake for them and we are expecting a very tough 80 minutes.

Under strength

"Group A is wide open but if we want to get out of it and qualify for the quarter finals we have to aim to win all our remaining games.

It's no good trying to rely on going through as a 'best second placed club', Group A is by far the toughest group, no team has a 100 per cent record and we need to do our best to qualify."

Montauban coaches Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers have made ten changes to their team for the visit of Sale.

The French side has a far stronger look about it than the under strength team that travelled to England last weekend. Try-scoring machine Vilimoni Delasau is back on the wing and the big Fijian will be out to make an impact.

Skipper Marc Raynaud also returns to the back-row while the half-back combination of Cédric Rosalen and Fabrice Culinat remains intact.

Despite all the changes, this is arguably not Montauban's first team as Romanian scrum-half Petre Mitu is on the bench and first choice place-kicker Fabien Fortassin and French international Ibrahim Diarra are absent.

Montauban: 15 Sylvain Jonnet, 14 Yohann Audrin, 13 Jean-Philippe Viard, 12 Miguel Avramovic, 11 Vilimoni Delasau, 10 Cédric Rosalen, 9 Fabrice Culinat, 8 Marc Raynaud (c), 7 Yannick Caballero, 6 Antoine Battut, , 5 Rowan Frost, 4 Mattias Rolland, 3 Silviu Florea, 2 Brice Mach, 1 Bogdan Balan.
Replacements: 16 Goderzic Shvelidze, 17 Nick Adams, 18 Karim Ghezal, 19 Matthew Clarkin, 20 Jean-Emmanuel Cassin, 21 Régis Lespinas, 22 Petre Mitu.

Sale: 15 Mathew Tait, 14 Mark Cueto, 13 Andy Tuilagi, 12 Luke McAlister, 11 David Doherty, 10 Charlie Hodgson, 9 Richard Wigglesworth; 1 Andrew Sheridan, 2 Marc Jones, 3 Eifion Roberts, 4 Sebastien Chabal, 5 Dean Schofield, 6 Luke Abraham, 7 Neil Briggs, 8 JM Fernandez Lobbe (Capt).
Replacements 16 Stuart Turner, 17 Lionel Faure, 18 Brent Cockbain, 19 David Tait, 20 Dwayne Peel, 21 Chris Bell, 22 Nick McLeod.