White aiming to give French ‘the Bleus’

SCOTLAND captain Jason White admits defeating France on Sunday would mean more to him than winning his 50th cap.

The Sale Sharks forward will proudly lead the Scots out at Murrayfield for the Six Nations Championship opener against the French.

But White knows results are ultimately what count and has called on his men to produce against the French.

The Scots have shown signs of progress under new coach Frank Hadden - even if they have not collected the results.

Hadden led his side to just one win from three in the November internationals - against Samoa - and White knows an opening tournament victory would be more special than his 50th cap honour.

He said: “It’s a big occasion for me in winning my 50th cap.

“It has probably crept up on me a little bit as the last two or three months of rugby have been so busy with Heineken Cup, Premiership and international games.

“But I think more than me getting my 50th cap, it’s just important to go out and play well on Sunday.

“We felt we finished strongly against New Zealand in our last game in November so it’s about taking that forward and improving our performance. “If we perform well we can get a victory on Sunday.”

He added: “We rate New Zealand probably as the best team in the world and France as being on a similar level to them. So for us playing New Zealand in the last game was ideal preparation. We obviously respect everyone we play against and need to go out and perform 100% against France.

In the meantime, France team manager Jo Maso is confident fly-half Frederic Michalak will be fit to take his place against Scotland.

Michalak has been struggling with a groin injury recently and has been unable to train so far this week.

However, the Toulouse ace was still included in the first XV when coach Bernard Laporte announced his team on Tuesday and Maso believes he will be fine for Sunday’s match.

“If we called him up it’s because he is capable of playing,” said Maso.

“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 per cent of his physical potential and his replacement who is at 100 per cent, we would take the latter.”