{"id":327304,"date":"2025-12-04T14:17:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T14:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327304\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T14:17:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T14:17:18","slug":"frederic-michalak-to-quit-rugby-union-for-surprising-nrl-gig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327304\/","title":{"rendered":"Frederic Michalak to quit rugby union for surprising NRL gig"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Racing 92<\/a> assistant coach Frederic Michalak<\/a> will leave the club at the end of the season in order to make a switch to rugby league with the NRL\u2019s Cronulla Sharks.<\/p>\n

The former France<\/a> fly-half has spent three years in Paris with Racing, but will team up with Craig Fitzgibbon once the season ends to provide his coaching impetus midway through the NRL campaign.<\/p>\n

This is not the 43-year-old\u2019s first dalliance in rugby league, as he worked with the Sharks<\/a> in 2022 as a kicking and skills consultant. Prior to that, he worked as a consultant at the Sydney Roosters, where Fitzgibbon was previously an assistant coach. <\/p>\n

Racing, who currently sit in 11th place in the Top 14, issued this statement shortly after his departure was announced: \u201cFr\u00e9d\u00e9ric remains fully committed to the team until the end of the 2025-2026 season, with the aim of continuing the group\u2019s progress and taking the club to the highest level in the Top 14<\/a> and the Challenge Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Racing take on Ulster<\/a> on Friday night in their opening match of the Challenge Cup. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ulster <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Racing 92 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 77-cap Frenchman\u2019s future boss Fitzgibbon said: \u201cFred\u2019s experience on the international stage will be an invaluable asset for our squad, especially heading into the business end of next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s already built strong relationships with many of our players and staff through his consultancy work and we have no doubt as to the value he\u2019ll provide our program.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wish Fred well as he looks to finish his time at Racing 92 on a high note and can\u2019t wait to welcome him to our club full time in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Racing 92 assistant coach Frederic Michalak will leave the club at the end of the season in order…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-327304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}