O'Driscoll back for Ireland

Published: Wednesday, 17. August, 2011 in category Ireland
O'Driscoll: Back for Ireland

The 32-year-old will be making his first appearance of the summer after recovering from the neck/shoulder injury that forced him to sit out Ireland's defeats to Scotland and France in their previous World Cup warm-up matches.

He will line up at outside centre in what is virtually Ireland's strongest XV.

"It's great to be back. It's always difficult sitting out any Test matches. I'm looking forward to the weekend," O'Driscoll said.

Ireland: F Jones (Munster); A Trimble (Ulster), B O'Driscoll (Leinster, capt), G D'Arcy (Leinster), K Earls (Munster); J Sexton (Leinster), T O'Leary (Munster); C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster), M Ross (Leinster), D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster), S O'Brien (Leinster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster).

Replacements: J Flannery (Munster), T Court (Ulster), M McCarthy (Connacht), S Ferris (Ulster), E Reddan (Leinster), R O'Gara (Munster), L Fitzgerald (Leinster).

France: Cedric Heymans (Toulouse); Maxime Medard (Toulouse), Aurelien Rougerie (Clermont), Fabrice Estebanez (Racing-Metro), Alexis Palisson (Brive); David Skrela (Toulouse), Morgan Parra (Clermont); Julien Bonnaire (Clermont), Louis Picamoles (Toulouse), Fulgence Ouedraogo (Montpellier); Lionel Nallet (Racing-Metro, capt), Pascal Pape (Stade Francais); Nicolas Mas (Perpignan), Dimitri Szarzewski (Stade Francais), Jean-Baptiste Poux (Toulouse).

Replacements: Guilhem Guirado (Perpignan), Fabien Barcella (Biarritz), Julien Pierre (Clermont), Raphael Lakafia (Biarritz), Dimitri Yachvili (Biarritz), Francois Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), Vincent Clerc (Toulouse), Luc Ducalcon (Castres).