This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with France’s Grand Plan, a bit of cheat mode in the French provinces and the looming international season…
Tension breaks out as France prepare for Australia
Only in France could two governing rugby bodies create a detailed, balanced, comprehensive resource-sharing agreement and then thoroughly botch its PR strategy.
But that’s what happened last week. The French federation and league governing body LNR – representing the clubs – signed off on an agreement on the usage of 33 premium players over the season and off-season leading towards next September’s showpiece.
Among other conditions, the agreement stipulated that the players would get a week off in every four, or a fortnight off in every eight, while none would be able to play more than nine Tests a season.
So far, so good. Except that this list was agreed upon back in January and the two parties opted to keep it a secret, which, in this day and age, was never going to work really, was it?
Certainly not when Midi-Olympique was on the case, with the paper obtaining and then gleefully leaking the list and quickly prompting a brusque denial from Jean-Marc Lhermet of the list’s accuracy, but just as quickly causing consternation among the fans of several clubs.
Supposedly there are 13 Toulouse players on the list, meaning Toulouse fans are now concerned that the tilt at an historic sixth championship in a row will be compromised. National team fans were perplexed at the absences of Maxime Lucu and Greg Alldritt among others, which subsequently caused the FFR to justify its measurement metrics (and in not so many words therefore, confirming the accuracy of the reported list). Lucu, for example, was injured at the time the list was made and so his workload last season was not deemed to have been overly-taxing since then.
LNR President Yann Robert, meanwhile, also implicitly spoke for the list’s veracity when he said that the presences of players such as Gael Fickou, who last played for France almost a year ago, did not guarantee their World Cup selection.
But – and admittedly stirred up by Midi-Olympique a little – the emergence of the list has caused a lot of debate in France, particularly with regard to team selections during the upcoming Six Nations. For the team considered most likely to challenge the current Springbok-All Black hegemony, the pressure has just been ratcheted up a little bit.
Cheat Mode activated
Not that much of the above soaked into the mainstream elsewhere, but Loose Pass has been physically in France for the past few days, taking the opportunity both to soak up some autumn sun and replenish the cellar. Also, it offers the perennially fun opportunity to venture out into the countryside and enjoy some club rugby from further down the pyramid.
The weekend past the Northern Rhone town of Villefranche-sur-Saône hosted Saint-Claude in a Federale 2, Pool 3 match which looked, on the one-match history of current-season form, a likely candidate for a home team win.
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The facility, considering this is the sixth tier of French rugby, was extremely impressive. A 20-row grandstand running from one 22 to the other, flanked by a clubhouse on one side and a large open bar on the other, overlooking a smooth, flat, healthy-looking dark green playing surface, whose colour and apparent vitality were in stark contrast to the baked yellow fields and hills of the surrounds.
Six euros got you access to it all, including ample free parking and a good 4-500 fans had already gathered to watch the B-team game curtain-raiser, which the home side won comfortably.
The main event was going the same way early in the second half when home side ‘buteur’ Paul Mazeau embellished his side’s 29-15 half-time lead with two penalties, one of them a monster into the breeze from 45m which would have had no problem clearing the bar from 10m further back.
But by that point, Saint Claude had already made two early second-half substitutions, a prop and a back. And things began to change. The prop was no monster in the scrums, but he was a beast with the ball in hand, frequently taking at least two men to bring him down and with him making the crucial metres that his team-mates had failed to make in the earlier stages.
Meanwhile the back, unmistakeably of Pacific Island origin, began tearing holes in the home defence and offloading the ball with uncanny skill. He scored one try himself, but created three others with highlight reel offloads, as Saint Claude eradicated the home side’s 35-15 lead to win the match 38-50, an event celebrated with great fervour by the visiting fans and met with some rather dour snarls from the home faithful. On the pitch, the highlight of the home side’s frustration was a kick aimed at one of the corner flags which uprooted said flag and sent it flying like a javelin over the railings at the far side of the pitch and almost into the bushes behind.
So naturally, the question, who were the mystery men? None of the visiting fans I asked knew who the prop was, nor was he listed on the rugbyamateur.fr website on the match report. But not to be deterred, internet trawling revealed that the prop was one Benjamin Donin, who once propped for the youth team at Bourg-en-Bresse before dropping rugby in favour of powerlifting, where he became World Champion in the U80kg category in 2022, and who only returned to rugby this season after declaring he missed it too much.
The back? Despite the best efforts of the fans to tell me it was Meuisela Talabula, once of Bordeaux and once top try-scorer in the Top 14, who is listed on the Saint Claude squad sheet, the website listed the teenage former Fijian Drua centre Tomasi Tuitatava, currently contracted at Oyonnax but seemingly getting his game time at Saint Claude.
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That probably won’t appease the Villefranche fans much, whose irritation at Tuitatava’s game-changing intervention was cholerically evident towards the end.
Bubbling up from below
Rugby Europe finally got round to confirming its autumn fixture list for the Rugby Europe Trophy and Conference last week, with the trophy in particular containing a few interesting storylines.
Germany needs to bounce back from last year’s highs-and-lows campaign that saw them beat Romania but get relegated in spite of that landmark victory. Among Germany’s opposition through the autumn and spring will be Malta, taking their first steps at the level above Conference level.
The Conference action starts next weekend, with Ukraine taking on Turkey in Moldova and Kosovo hosting Montenegro in Pristina, while the Conference action continues through October before the Trophy gets underway in earnest on Halloween.