Stringer, Ireland's most capped scrum-half, is preferred to either Eoin Reddan or Isaac Boss and joins his Munster scrum-half team-mate Tomas O'Leary in an Ireland squad containing 13 Munster players. There will be some surprise that number wasn't 14 with Ian Dowling a surprise omission having had a faultless season to date in Munster's run to a record 11th successive Heineken Cup quarter final and the head of affairs in the Magners League.

The full squad who trained in Limerick this week were split into Senior and A squads after the morning training session before the players broke for the weekend. They will re-assemble in Dublin on Sunday evening and the respective starting XVs will be announced at lunchtime on Tuesday.

Ireland Squad (27). Tommy Bowe, Girvan Dempsey, Gordon DArcy, Keith Earls, Luke Fitzgerald, Shane Horgan, Robert Kearney, Geordan Murphy, Brian O'Driscoll, capt, Ronan O'Gara, Tomas O'Leary, Peter Stringer, Paddy Wallace. Rory Best, Tom Court, Stephen Ferris, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes, Jamie Heaslip, Marcus Horan, Denis Leamy, Donncha O'Callaghan, Paul O'Connell, Mick O'Driscoll, Malcolm OKelly, Alan Quinlan, David Wallace. 

France Squad: Maxime Medard, Clement Poitrenaud, Cedric Heymans (all Toulouse), Julien Malzieu (Clermont-Auvergne), Yannick Jauzion, Florian Fritz (both Toulouse), Benoit Baby (Clermont-Auvergne), Lionel Beauxis (Stade Francais), Sebastien Tillous-Borde (Castres), Morgan Parra (Bourgoin)

Forwards: Fabien Barcella (Biarritz), Lionel Faure (Sale), Fabien Lecouls (Toulouse), Nicolas Mas (Perpignan), Dimitri Szarzewski (Stade Francais), Benjamin Kayser (Leicester), Lionel Nallet (Castres), Romain Millo-Chluski (Toulouse), Sebastien Chabal (Sale), Imanol Harinordoquy (Biarritz), Fulgence Ouedraogo, Louis Picamoles (both Montpellier), Thierry Dusautoir (Toulouse)