Jo Maso Quotes (21 Quotes)

I would rate our performance as average plus, but this average plus performance leaves us with a positive balance sheet.

Florian badly bruised his left knee in a French championship match with his Toulouse club on Saturday. He had a scan today and doctors decided that he should be exempted from training until Wednesday. We'll see then if he has recovered.

We wanted to select him in July and in November but he was ruled out through injuries. We are glad to give him a new opportunity to prove his worth.

The first match of the tournament is always tricky. The players have not played together for a long time.

We decided to rely on the players who gave us full satisfaction in November against South Africa and Australia when they were available.

We just talked to Thomas, he said he had fully recovered and would play at the weekend with his Saracens club. Thomas made a brilliant comeback in November. He can play at fly-half, centre or full-back - for the time being we think of him as a full-back.

The team had a very good second half against the Italians, and we want to continue to forge ahead to beat the English.

We are of course sorry for Thomas because he made a great comeback in November but he pulled a thigh muscle on Saturday in the Heineken Cup match against Biarritz. We talked to him this morning and he told us he should be fit again in two weeks.

We will count on the team from November but competition still exists within the group and that's for the best.

Frederic has been in pain for a month but he has played very good games with Toulouse in the Heineken Cup and the French championship and we are confident he will be at his best.

If he plays and he's not at 100 per cent, the injury will worsen. We need to have guarantees and not take any risks.

To go out as captain of the side that won the World Cup showed his real worth as a player, and he was respected by everyone in France.

We have won 13 out of 15 matches in the tournament in three years, we are unbeaten at home in seven matches since last November and we have beaten the tries record.

Olivier was not catastrophic against the English but he was responsible for three of the penalties the referee awarded against us. When he gets too wound up it's a bad time so it's time for a look at the (others).

We knew from the beginning that the championship could be more open than the previous years and that the strongest challenge would come from England.

Christophe was injured in November. He is one of our best wings. We want to win the Six Nations because it's a true competition and we want to field the best players available.

The case of Martin is less serious. He has a fever, but he is under treatment and was feeling better today and we hope he will resume training tomorrow.

We preferred to leave the group in place to let them continue working in peace.

We prefer to keep managing it (the strain). Frederic wanted to train from Wednesday morning but we prefer to hold him back.

If we called him up it's because he is capable of playing. We did not want to rest him for the first match. We've always said that if we had to choose between a regular first-team member who is at 80 of his physical potential and his replacement who is at 100, we would take the latter.

The return of Fabien is pure logic. He's our captain and he proved with Toulouse in the Heineken Cup that he was fully fit.