France centre Florian Fritz will miss the entire Six Nations championship because of a fractured right fibula, the team management said in a statement last night.
Fritz sustained the injury in training yesterday, just after he had been included by coach Marc Lièvremont in his starting line-up for the champions' first match in the tournament, against Scotland at Murrayfield on Sunday.
The Toulouse player will be out of action for up to 12 weeks.
Lièvremont insists he has total faith in France's new breed after opting for four uncapped players in his starting XV.
Outhalf François Trinh-Duc, winger Julien Malzieu and props Lionel Faure and Julien Brugnaut will make their debuts. Flanker Fulgence Ouedraogo and lock Loïc Jacquet have just three caps between them.
"They are not here just to have walk-on parts," said former Dax coach Lièvremont, who will also have the uncapped 19-year-old scrumhalf Morgan Parra and lock Arnaud Mela on the bench.
"We want to see them. Some start, some don't. The main thing that concerns us is the homogeneity and the blending between the old guys and the new ones."
Of the gambles the coach is taking, the selection of Trinh-Duc at the problem position of number 10 is the biggest.
The Montpellier player, who displaces David Skrela, has been in good form for his club and Lièvremont knows him from the pair's time in the under-21 set-up.
