France seek to restore World Cup fortunes

France are looking for a convincing win over Asian champions Japan on Saturday to revive their World Cup hopes after an uncertain lead-in to the tournament.

Les Bleus should have few problems with the Brave Blossoms at North Harbour with the Japanese only successful once in all of their six previous World Cup campaigns while France are a two-time beaten finalist.

The French are fielding their second oldest starting XV in World Cup history with an average age of just under 30 and they will look to dominate Japan in the set pieces and provide a good platform for fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc and fullback Cedric Heymans to attack.

France are still smarting from a deflating last 12 months with the nadir of a record 59-16 defeat at home to Australia in November and a first-ever loss to Italy in the Six Nations.

"We've learned our lessons from our loss in Rome. We were arrogant and it won't happen again. Personally, I have still not digested that match," Racing-Metro lock Lionel Nallet said this week.

"It was even more humiliating for me, as my performance was pretty poor.

"If you don't push to go and get it when you're on the field, you become an average team. Against Japan, we'll get on the field to win." Bayonne fullback Heymans said the French will be looking to rebuild their confidence starting with the 13th-ranked Japanese.

"We will need to reassure ourselves, as we did with the two matches against Ireland. We're going to structure our game a bit better," Heymans said. "We've seen the footage. We need to take the Japanese seriously. They won the Pacific Cup. It's quite something."

Coach and All Blacks great John Kirwan said the Brave Blossoms would attempt to play an expansive committed game on Saturday in search of just their second World Cup win. "What you'll see on Saturday is an incredibly committed group of rugby players that know how to play the game. We've chosen a style that suits us and we're hoping that that style you'll see very quickly," Kirwan said.

Kirwan has made two changes from last month's warm-up defeat to Italy, with Luke Thompson coming in for the injured lock Justin Ives and veteran Hirotoki Onozawa getting the nod on the wing.

With Philippe Saint-Andre already announced as his successor after the World Cup, coach Marc Lievremont said he will be disappointed if the French are not champions of the world come October 23. Fourth-ranked France have been twice World Cup runners-up in 1987 and 1999 but they will have to topple the top-ranked All Blacks in Pool A if they are to avoid a likely quarter-final with England, winners of this year's Six Nations. AUCKLAND, Sept 9, 2011 AFP