Marconnet ruled out

PARIS – France received a World Cup blow Monday when veteran prop Sylvain Marconnet was ruled out of the competition after failing to recover from an ankle injury.

The Stade Francais player will be replaced by Perpignan’s Nicolas Mas, team officials said. Marconnet, who underwent surgery on a spiral fracture of his tibia sustained in March, suffered an ankle inflammation earlier this month, and his surgeon has decided he needs another operation to clear up the problem.”I’m not going to re-operate on the tibia fracture because that’s solid, but he has a stress fracture because of the efforts demanded of his ankle to return to the highest level,” Marconnet’s surgeon, Dr Philippe Landreau, told AFP.Injury brings call for Japan’s Aoki TOKYO – Suntory Sungoliath hooker Yusuke Aoki has been called into Japan’s Rugby World Cup squad to replace injured Mitsugu Yamamoto, the Japan Rugby Footall Union said yesterday.It said the 24-year-old Aoki, who has been capped twice before, would join the rest of the squad at their training camp in Italy.The Japanese, who take on Portugal this Saturday in their last warm-up game in Venice, are paired with Australia, Wales, Fiji and Canada in Pool B in the World Cup, which starts September 7 in France.Marconnet, who underwent surgery on a spiral fracture of his tibia sustained in March, suffered an ankle inflammation earlier this month, and his surgeon has decided he needs another operation to clear up the problem.”I’m not going to re-operate on the tibia fracture because that’s solid, but he has a stress fracture because of the efforts demanded of his ankle to return to the highest level,” Marconnet’s surgeon, Dr Philippe Landreau, told AFP.Injury brings call for Japan’s Aoki TOKYO – Suntory Sungoliath hooker Yusuke Aoki has been called into Japan’s Rugby World Cup squad to replace injured Mitsugu Yamamoto, the Japan Rugby Footall Union said yesterday.It said the 24-year-old Aoki, who has been capped twice before, would join the rest of the squad at their training camp in Italy.The Japanese, who take on Portugal this Saturday in their last warm-up game in Venice, are paired with Australia, Wales, Fiji and Canada in Pool B in the World Cup, which starts September 7 in France.