{"id":458180,"date":"2026-03-05T03:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458180\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T03:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T03:03:08","slug":"frances-rugby-talent-factory-has-become-envy-of-world-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458180\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s rugby talent factory has become envy of world game"},"content":{"rendered":"

The emergence of Pau<\/p>\n

That is where Section Paloise, in the B\u00e9arn region of south-west France, come in. Although Pau have always been knocking around in the upper echelons of French rugby, certainly in the professional era, they have never been considered one of French rugby\u2019s traditional big-hitters. That is, until this season.<\/p>\n

Pau sit second in the Top 14 and last Sunday put Bordeaux, the reigning European champions, to the sword, winning 39-17. It would require a capitulation of Devon Loch proportions for them to not qualify for the end-of-season play-offs.<\/p>\n

Pau\u2019s director of rugby is S\u00e9bastien Piqueronies, the Frenchman who was described to Telegraph Sport for a 2022 article<\/a> on France\u2019s talent pipeline as the \u201cmastermind behind the current explosion across the Channel\u201d. Piqueronies was the coach when France under-20s won back-to-back world titles in 2018 and 2019. Many of that title-winning crop are now playing for Galthi\u00e9\u2019s senior side. And, guess what, now at Pau, Piqueronies is at it again.<\/p>\n

It is not just Brau-Boirie and Gailleton who ply their trade in the B\u00e9arn region. Th\u00e9o Attissogbe, the 21-year-old who has started all of France\u2019s Six Nations games, also plays for Pau. Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang and Gr\u00e9goire Arfeuil, two further back-three players, of 25 and 21 years respectively, are also under Piqueronies\u2019s guidance, and also in Galthi\u00e9\u2019s wider squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The emergence of Pau That is where Section Paloise, in the B\u00e9arn region of south-west France, come in.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[165016,165017,5903,23451,48695,43326,217,101,5438,18093,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-458180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-france-rugby-union-team","tag-pau-section-paloise","tag-rugby","tag-rugby-union","tag-scotland-rugby-union-team","tag-six-nations","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-top-14","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}