Laporte steers clear of opponents' mind games

Bernard Laporte has refused to get involved in Clive Woodward's tactical mind games – publicly at least – as his French team try to end England's Grand Slam hopes yet again.

If Laporte is concerned about his England counterpart's attempts to give his side additional options by including the Sale fly-half Charlie Hodgson at centre for today's Twickenham encounter, he was certainly not showing it yesterday.

"That's not a very important selection," said the man known as 'The Kaiser', whose side effectively shackled the England playmaker Jonny Wilkinson as France won 20-15 at the Stade de France in the penultimate match of last season's Six Nations' Championship.

"What is important is what France are going to do on the pitch and what the intentions of England will be against us.

"We know that Hodgson is a fly-half so probably he has a very good kicking game.

"Maybe on one side of the pitch Wilkinson will play centre with Hodgson at fly-half and at the other side it will be the other way round.

"But in the end, it is nothing. It's one No 10 and one centre." Laporte, however, said he has the utmost respect for the English side.

The England captain Martin Johnson this week hailed the French back row of Serge Betsen, Olivier Magne and Imanol Harinordoquy as the world's best but Laporte was too modest to accept the compliment.

"It's the same with the England back row," he said. "I think England are the best team in the world."

It is all very diplomatic and a far cry from the not-too-distant days when the fiery England hooker Brian Moore and his French rivals hurled vicious verbal barbs across the Channel. But Laporte said: "I never say that I don't like English people or that certain players are no good."

France's rugby manager Jo Maso, however, was pushing a very different line yesterday.

"French people and English people don't like each other. It's a lasting fact since the Hundred Years War, since Joan of Arc," he said.

"Rugby union is a fighting game. Our sport allows people to fight on a pitch the wars they cannot fight any more on battlefields."

The French full-back Clement Poitrenaud – with the winger Vincent Clerc one of the two French Six Nations' debutants – also displayed a sense of history, though of a more recent vintage.

"To play my first championship game is enormous, grandiose," said the 20-year-old who won his first three caps when France beat Australia, New Zealand and Fiji in November 2001. He was kept out of the side by a series of injuries last season.

Poitrenaud added: "When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the France versus England clashes. Playing at Twickenham means I'm entering the rugby union legend."