Six Nations: Furious Lièvremont offers Rome redemption for humiliated French players

The Sale Sharks player was roundly criticised for his performance in the 34-10 drubbing by England but Lièvremont has spared him the indignity of being dropped, preferring instead to move him back to the second row.

Chabal will partner captain Lionel Nallet – in a return to the line-up which so impressed against Wales in the previous Six Nations match – with Jerome Thion dropping down to the bench.

The other changes see Maxime Medard moved from full-back to replace Julien Malzieu on the wing, with Biarritz’s utility back Damien Traille stepping in at No 15.

Traille, who usually plays in the centres for his club, came on as a second-half substitute for fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc against England, but now moves to full-back – a position he hasn’t played for Les Bleus since their World Cup semi-final in 2007.

And with Florian Fritz coming in at outside centre for Stade Francais’ Mathieu Bastareaud, it means Stade Toulousain players occupying the 11-14 shirts.

The remaining alteration to France’s starting XV is prop Fabien Barcella in for Lionel Faure.

But while Lièvremont has by and large offered his sheepish charges the chance of partial redemption in Rome on Saturday, he also left no room for doubt about his disappointment with the team performance at Twickenham.

“This week I’m really fed up,” he said. “For the first time I would rather be far from my players. I have a feeling of frustration, shame, anger and fury,” he said at the team announcement.

When asked if he had considered walking away from his job as national coach Lièvremont said that it would take more than one disastrous performance.

“Sure, if we were to hand in several blank pages such as the one at Twickenham, anger would turn to weariness and I don’t see how I could carry on, but I’m not considering such a thing so I’ll carry on,” he said.

Lièvremont added: “They know they failed individually and collectively in all the fundamentals of the game. We are giving them – starters and replacements – a rare chance of avenging the Twickenham insult, even if a win in Rome will not be enough to stomach such a slap in the face, such a humiliation. I hope they will take it.”

Traille, meanwhile, said the squad had been frank in its post-match assessment of what went wrong against England.

“It is vital to say certain things, nothing but hard truths will suffice,” he admitted. “Sometimes it is difficult to listen to but in the end it puts people on the right path.”

He appeared less concerned about his positional switch, however, saying it didn’t overly worry him as he had played at full-back for Biarritz several times this season.

“Seeing the system that we have put in place at national level, it is not that different from what we are doing at Biarritz, so it should go fine,” he reasoned.