France and England feeling the heat

France coach Bernard Laporte has demanded his team restore the pride of French rugby when they face the All Blacks in Paris tomorrow still stinging from last week's 47-3 humiliation in Lyon.

The game marks the centenary celebration of the national team and the public will demand a significant improvement seven days after France suffered their heaviest home defeat.

The paying fans will also be in unforgiving mood at Twickenham where England seek to avoid a record eighth successive defeat when they take on South Africa.

England were booed off last week after their 25-18 loss to Argentina and, with the Springboks fielding a second-string team, nothing but a spectacular win will be enough and even that will probably not save coach Andy Robinson's job.

Eddie O'Sullivan, in contrast, has the complete confidence of the Irish public and management and can put another feather in his cap with victory over Australia in Dublin on Sunday.

In tomorrow's other games, Argentina, fresh from their morale-boosting Twickenham success, play Italy in Rome, while Scotland host the Pacific Islands. Wales play Canada tonight.

New Zealand coach Graham Henry said at the start of the tour he would use his first two games as warm-ups and then field his strongest sides against France in Paris and Wales in Cardiff next week.

Some warm-up. The "experimentals" handed England and France record home defeats, scoring 11 tries, to shorten further their already prohibitive odds to win the 2007 World Cup on French soil.

Henry made five changes from the Lyon starting line-up to put out what he described as his "best team right now" but few observers consider it to be his absolute strongest hand.

It hardly matters, however, as there is so little to choose between so many of his squad.

"It was a difficult selection because we probably have 30 players who were entitled to claim a start," said Henry.

England coach Robinson said England had to suffer the pain of defeat to learn how to improve and pleaded for patience and support from the fans.

"I've told the players that there's no going back, we can't scrap our attacking framework and go back to nine-man rugby," he said in the wake of widespread calls for him to resign.

England have beaten South Africa six times in a row and, with the Springboks way under strength on this tour, must expect to make that eight over the next two weeks.