France are steeling themselves for a brutal match against South Africa at the Municipal Stadium in Toulouse tomorrow night. In the build-up to the game, their former captain Fabien Pelous provided a pithy assessment of the challenge the French face. "The All Blacks have the best technical players and the Australians are the best tactically," he said, " but the South Africans, they have huge beasts. They have taken up the option of destroying everyone physically."

Wary as they are of the Springboks' physicality, Marc Lièvremont's squad have been preparing themselves for a rough-and-tumble tussle. The Biarritz prop Fabien Barcella admitted as much. "The Springboks have a fighting culture and very impressive power," he said. "Sometimes they are borderline. They like to hurt you. It's up to us to show that we can hurt them even more by turning up with a warrior's mentality."

Lièvremont has geared his selection towards matching South Africa's power. Yann David has come in at outside-centre because of the extra bulk he offers in comparison to David Marty, who is the regular club partner of the No12 Maxime Mermoz while Damien Traille has been switched to full-back ahead of the dashing Maxime Médard to provide extra solidity under the high ball.

South Africa have not beaten France away since 1997 - losing on their last three tours there – and since the French managed a 27-22 victory over New Zealand in Dunedin in June, the home side are now subject to high expectations. However, Lièvremont, who finally seems to have stopped tinkering with the team and is starting to focus on getting the squad to gel ahead of the 2011 World Cup, does not think the French are favourites. "We will have to get our basics absolutely perfect, in terms of impact, precision, launching attacks, our kicking game, our attitude," he said. "South Africa largely dominated the Tri-Nations series this summer and the spine of their team is extremely strong."