RUGBY/Bayonne v Ireland Stade Jean Dauger, 8.0: Ireland crank up preparations for the forthcoming World Cup by unveiling a full-strength side - give or take a couple of injuries - against Bayonne this evening, the first time the full Test team will have taken the field since the win over Italy in Rome on St Patrick's Day.

While Ireland are clearly endeavouring to peak for the pivotal pool meeting with France on September 21st, their opening game against Namibia is only 24 days away, and not only did the Scots appear relatively ahead of the Irish last Saturday in terms of their contact work, but so too did the Coupe du Monde hosts in beating England in an earth-shudderingly muscular collision at Twickenham last Saturday.

Furthermore, les Bleus host England in Marseille on Saturday and travel to Cardiff to play Wales a week later. Given their opening match is against Argentina, before they play Namibia, four of their five matches prior to meeting Ireland will have been relatively full-on.

By contrast, after the defeat to Scotland and this evening's hastily arranged hit-out against the Basque outfit, Ireland's only other warm-up game is against Italy in Ravenhill tomorrow week, while their first two pool matches are against Namibia and Georgia.

The quarter-final exits from the Heineken European Cup of Munster and Leinster and the understandable decision to rest the 15 frontliners from the tour to Argentina have left Eddie O'Sullivan's first-choice XV fresh but decidedly ring-rusty, as was evident even in the efforts of Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell in Murrayfield.

Accordingly both have been retained, along with Neil Best, who moves to the openside in the absence of the injured David Wallace - still troubled by a recurring ankle problem - and in the absence of a second specialist seven in the 30-man World Cup squad.

Girvan Dempsey, Andrew Trimble, Gordon D'Arcy, Denis Hickie, Ronan O'Gara and Peter Stringer, playing his first game in four-and-a-half months, are recalled to a first-choice back line missing only Shane Horgan, who is battling against time to recuperate from the grade-two medial-ligament tear he sustained in the Murrayfield warm-up.

Marcus Horan, Rory Best, John Hayes, Donncha O'Callaghan, Simon Easterby and Denis Leamy are recalled to a first-choice pack save for Wallace.

Commenting on the selection, O'Sullivan said, "The other players in the squad need game time and this match gives us that opportunity. You cannot replicate the same levels of intensity and physicality in training as you can in a match, so Thursday night will be vital for their preparation. This will be a full-on match and will give the team the levels of contact we need.

"The new faces in the team have really been chomping at the bit to get a game and it will be a step up for them as they come out of their pre-season, but it is something that they need."

Ireland will play in blue jerseys, as this is not a full representative game. Nevertheless, interest in the match is acute in this rugby-mad town, all the more so given slightly changeable weather this week in nearby coastal/surfing resort towns. Even so, the expected balmy evening weather for a 9pm kick-off local time along with the squad's five-day training in Capbreton should be ideal preparation for an autumnal French campaign.

Already, 10,000 tickets have been sold, including all 8,000 seats at the 15,000-capacity Stade Jean Dauger, and a crowd of 13,000 is expected.

Ireland are a big draw, but despite being the poorer relations of nearby Biarritz - the grounds are just five kilometres apart and the populations are similar at around 45,000 and 40,000 - Bayonne are much the better-supported club in the Basque region.

This is all the more remarkable given Biarritz have won the last two French Championships, whereas Bayonne, who won the last of their three Boucliers in 1943, regained their Top-14 status only three years ago and have ensured their survival only on the last day in the three campaigns since promotion. Indeed, two seasons ago, they were facing relegation for 10 minutes during a dramatic final day.

The close-season has seen a remarkable player turnover at the club, upwards of 19 players leaving and 13 coming in, along with promotions from within.

For Bayonne's first game of their pre-season (they also host Sale on Sunday) five of their newcomers make debuts - the ex-Waratahs and Narbonne number eight Dwayne Haare; the ex-Castres and France A hooker David Roumieu; the ex-Colomiers scrumhalf Anthony Salle-Canne; the France A fullback Daniel Larrechea (a summer capture from Sale); and the longtime Toulouse centre Xavier Garbajosa.

The 30-year-old Garbajosa, who has overcome two career-threatening knee injuries, is one of two full internationals in their team, the other being a fellow midfielder, 32-year-old Richard Dourthe.

Mindful of their dreadfully slow start last season, head coach Jean-Pierre Ellisalde, father of the current Toulouse and French scrumhalf Jean-Baptiste, made it a club policy not to sign players involved in the World Cup given the French championship starts a week after the World Cup final. Hence, their only World Cup absentee is their Georgian prop, Avto Kopolieni.

Two of their higher-profile close-season captures, the ex-Australia and Perpignan outhalf Manny Edmonds and Craig Gower, who is finishing out his Australian rugby league season, are missing.

Edmonds is sidelined for two months with a knee injury sustained while fighting the one-time Bayonne and Scotland player James McLaren during the Bayonne festival (never the most sober of week-long social occasions) at the beginning of August.

Hence, when the squad were introduced to over 2,000 Bayonne fans at the Stade Jean Dauger on August 9th, Edmonds was obliged to apologise to them publicly.

They take their rugby seriously hereabouts, but barring injuries, it should be a useful and relatively comfortably night's work for the Irishmen in blue.

An amateur rugby player has tested positive for cannabis. The Irish Sport Anti-Doping disciplinary panel found that, contrary to Article 2.1 of the Irish Anti-Doping Rules, the presence of a prohibited substance or its metabolite, cannabis, was found in a sample of the player's urine collected during in-competition testing toward the end of the 2006-2007 season.

At the hearing, the panel severely warned and reprimanded the player, but decided not to ban him from competition.