{"id":582827,"date":"2026-05-14T02:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/582827\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:49:14","slug":"narbonne-small-town-club-on-brink-of-pro-d2-after-penalty-shoot-out-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/582827\/","title":{"rendered":"Narbonne: Small-town club on brink of Pro D2 after penalty shoot-out win"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fair few Argentinians course through the heart of Narbonne: Gonzalo Quesada, Mario Ledesma, Ignacio Corleto, Mart\u00edn Scelzo. Axel M\u00fcller would not rank alongside them in most Puma recollections, yet for Racing Club Narbonnais he is immortal. As of four days ago.<\/p>\n

The semi-final of the Nationale, the bridge league between amateur and professional rugby in France, concluded frantically. In the final minutes, Pierre-Hugo Ducom\u2019s try and Tom Chauvet\u2019s conversion for Narbonne were cancelled out by Matt\u00e9o Coustalat and Th\u00e9o Vidal for Albi. At full-time it was 29-29. After 20 extra minutes produced no change, the occasion demanded a penalty shoot-out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first 12 kicks, in front of the posts from the 22m line, sailed through, including one by Na\u00ebl Souid, the Narbonne flanker. The 13th effort by T\u00e9o Dospital, Albi\u2019s full back, skewed left and up stepped M\u00fcller to win it 7-6. Away fans invaded the Stadium Municipal pitch and were wild. Albi were livid. Top of the third-tier table, knocked out by the team in fifth. Such is play-off rugby. Narbonne will face Nissa Rugby in the final on Saturday, one victory away from Pro D2.<\/p>\n

Even in France, the only rugby nation sustaining a parochial pyramid, the modern picture is of big cities and grand plans. Narbonne embodies the old ways: smaller, rich in history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"RCNarbonne are hoping to return to Pro D2 this weekend after a penalty shoot-out play-off winRC Narbonnais<\/p>\n

\u201cSmall towns are finished.\u201d That was the verdict of Walter Spanghero in 2018. The Grand Oualterre, one of six rugby-playing brothers, is a defining rugbyman at Narbonnais, alongside Jo Maso and Didier Codorniou. The orange and black of Narbonne, top-flight regulars, were relegated in 2007 and in 2018 they dropped into the third tier. Like Agen, Auch, Bagn\u00e8res-de-Bigorre, B\u00e9ziers, Bourgoin-Jallieu, Dax, Lourdes, Mazamet and Tarbes, a great rugby town appeared as Romanesque as the Palace of Archbishops on its crest. <\/p>\n

I canvassed three Britons \u2014 Robbie Hutton, Steve Moore and Craig Yandell \u2014 who represented the club in the early years of professionalism. They paint Narbonne in the expected fashion, full of southern intensity. When France hosted England for a rugby league international in Narbonne in 1980, the referee Billy Thompson was locked in the changing room to avoid the post-match mob after he disallowed a late try for the hosts and had empty beer cans hurled at him. He saw the positives: \u201cThey might have thrown full ones.\u201d Chapeau to The World of Rugby League by David Hodgkinson and Paul Harrison for that one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hutton met the Grand Oualterre once. \u201cHe was a very impressive Narbonne figure,\u201d the former Richmond back-rower says. \u201cHe had hands that were like three times the size of mine. He spoke with a very strong Narbonne accent, very deep. He was someone who commanded respect straight away.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Forget history at your peril in Narbonne, a vital Roman province at the intersection of the Via Domitia and the Via Aquitania. The rugby club was born in 1907, the year of a winegrowers\u2019 revolt, and were national champions in 1936 and 1979. \u201cNarbonne is a fairly insular town,\u201d Hutton says. \u201cIt\u2019s a little town. It\u2019s a bit like Ast\u00e9rix. All the bigger towns around \u2014 B\u00e9ziers, Perpignan, Carcassonne, or even Toulouse \u2014 Narbonne defends itself against these teams since the beginning of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Saint-Just-et-Saint-PasteurA town steeped in history, Narbonne has learnt to defend itself against the larger local sidesAlamy<\/p>\n

One of the accusations levelled at Rocky Elsom was that he ignored history, taking down a photograph of the 1979 champions. The former Wallabies and Leinster flanker joined the club as a player and ended up as owner and president in 2015, a brief tenure said to be an association of opaque separation from the past, dividing club from town. Adding to the tragedy of the age was the death of Jerry Collins, who made eight appearances for Narbonne before a fatal car crash in June 2015.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Elsom affair continues to generate headlines. He fled Ireland for Australia and his whereabouts were unknown last year when, in absentia, he was sentenced to two years in prison for misuse of corporate assets. Elsom denied the charges and said he was being treated as a scapegoat, having never been summoned to court. Two weeks ago he told Midi Olympique he would like to return to France to present his case, but feared he would be arrested and imprisoned during the appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat can we take away from this crazy adventure? That for the first time, we saw a rugby club \u2018privatised\u2019 in the worst sense of the word,\u201d J\u00e9r\u00f4me Pr\u00e9vot wrote in Midi eight years ago. \u201cThe team with two Brennus shields and nine Challenge Yves du Manoir wins found itself managed like a kind of transit hub or marshalling yard. Its presence in the heart of Pro D2, far from the gaze of the mainstream media, undoubtedly contributed to this incredible experience, a stark reminder of professionalism at its most chilling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\":Former Australia international Elsom\u2019s tenure at the club still generates headlines todayANTHONY PHELPS\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Given that recent history, the unity of town and club, and memory of stars in the sky, is paramount. There have been celebrations of players with 100 or more appearances for the club all season, and its \u201cstrategy of anchoring and transmission\u201d is committed to \u201chonouring one\u2019s elders and maintaining the link between generations\u201d, and \u201cthe values of rugby as a vehicle for social cohesion and civic engagement\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Narbonne have come close to a Pro D2 return since 2021-22 \u2014 their solitary campaign back in the second tier, ending in 16th place out of 16. They lost to Nissa in the 2024 Nationale final, after which they also lost the promotion play-off 20-19 against Montauban. Last season Narbonne lost at the semi-final stage, in the Classic\u2019Aude derby against Carcassonne, but victories in Massy and Albi have returned them to the showpiece this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AxelM\u00fcller, right, stamped his name into club immortality with his winning kick last weekendRC Narbonnais<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s final will take place in Bourg-en-Bresse, and those stuck in Narbonne will be able to watch at a fan zone at Parc des Sports et de l\u2019Amiti\u00e9. As they say in France: une finale, \u00e7a ne se joue pas, \u00e7a se gagne. A final is not played, it is won. The Spanghero brothers were the livid ones at Parc des Princes in 1974, playing but not winning, when Henri Cabrol\u2019s late drop-goal won it 16-14 for B\u00e9ziers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andr\u00e9 Belzons scored a try for Narbonne that day and his grandson, Paul, the third generation to wear orange and black, came off the bench in Albi. \u201cEvery year spent away from Pro D2 will be a slow death for the club,\u201d Gilles Belzons \u2014 Andr\u00e9\u2019s son and Paul\u2019s father \u2014 said in 2018. Sporting life and sporting death hinge on the swing of a leg.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nationale final<\/p>\n

Narbonne v Nice
Saturday, 5.30pm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fair few Argentinians course through the heart of Narbonne: Gonzalo Quesada, Mario Ledesma, Ignacio Corleto, Mart\u00edn Scelzo.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-582827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582827","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=582827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}