{"id":782364,"date":"2026-09-25T17:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782364\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T17:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:08:12","slug":"i-havent-come-back-for-a-jolly-dan-robson-on-dupont-pau-and-rebuilding-gloucester-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782364\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I haven\u2019t come back for a jolly\u2019: Dan Robson on Dupont, Pau and rebuilding Gloucester | Rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most players returning home from the French Top 14 have had a life-enhancing experience and Dan Robson is the latest example. The former England scrum-half spent four seasons in the shadow of the Pyrenees with Pau, mixing it with the likes of Antoine Dupont and Maxime Lucu, before rejoining his first Prem employers, Gloucester<\/a>, this summer. \u201cNo more croissants for breakfast,\u201d he sighs, slightly wistfully. \u201cBut it\u2019s good to be back. My waistline is thanking me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ask him how much he would recommend a spell abroad to others, though, and the word \u201camazing\u201d swiftly follows. Not only were his two young sons, Laker and Roux, born in Pau \u2013 \u201cIt\u2019s always going to have a special place in our hearts as a family\u201d \u2013 but he also much enjoyed his regular meetups with Jack Willis, a close mate at Wasps before the club\u2019s financial collapse forced both to start afresh across the Channel.<\/p>\n

The challenge now is for the new English Prem season, which kicks off on Friday night, to show itself to be of a similar on-field calibre to its French counterpart. Robson, for instance, has witnessed first-hand the significant improvement in Willis\u2019s game since he joined\u00a0Toulouse and reckons the back-row would be a serious asset for England should the eligibility rules ever be tweaked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty scary where his level\u2019s at. You want the Premiership still thriving but would I like to see a special circumstance clause? I don\u2019t think anyone would begrudge a couple of \u2018wildcards\u2019 in a World Cup year. As an English person I want the best people involved in the next World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming up against Dupont was also educational, even by French standards where top-class No 9s are de rigueur. \u201cDupont is the one. You can feel the energy and confidence coming off the other team when he\u2019s on the pitch.\u201d If it tempts opponents to try to shut him down single-handedly, so much the better. \u201cThat\u2019s what really good players like him want. They want people to go outside their system and go and hit him because he\u2019s good enough to make the late decision to put someone else in a hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already it should be obvious why Gloucester wanted the well-travelled 34-year-old to come back and jostle for the No 9 shirt with Caolan Englefield, 11 years after having left Kingsholm, where he made 80 appearances. Consistency, for various reasons, has not been a Cherry and White characteristic for some time. Now, with the Welsh international duo of Dewi Lake and Jac Morgan in the vanguard and the highly respected Chris Boyd on board as technical director, there is tangible optimism for the new season.<\/p>\n

Having been involved in one impressive rebuild at Pau, who have steadily risen from relegation contenders to the upper rungs of the Top 14 table, Robson sees no reason why Gloucester cannot do something similar. \u201cWe\u2019ve got everything we could possibly want here to succeed,\u201d he suggests. \u201cWe\u2019re not wanting for anything, which is great. There are no excuses. It just adds that little bit of pressure to look at each individual and say: \u2018We\u2019ve got to perform now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Robson clears against Bristol in the Prem Rugby Cup on 5 September. Photograph: Bob Bradford\/CameraSport\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

From afar, like everyone else, he has been pondering why Gloucester have not featured in the playoffs since 2018-2019. It is 19 years since they last topped the end-of-season table, since when the Shed faithful have largely had to be stoic. \u201cIt\u2019s been all over the shop a little bit on the pitch and that\u2019s the big challenge for us this year,\u201d stresses Robson. \u201cTo be really consistent and understand that, while we\u2019re not going to win every week, we need to be performing in every game, putting teams under pressure and understanding how we can win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those ambitions will be tested immediately in round one at Exeter, who battled their way to last season\u2019s final<\/a> and were not too far away from ruining Northampton\u2019s day. Exeter are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their move to Sandy Park, with their debut Premiership win against Gloucester in 2010 an indelible memory, and will supply an immediate test of character. As Robson acknowledges: \u201cIt\u2019s always tough to play them at Sandy Park but we\u2019ve got a great opportunity to go there and really test ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one could possibly dispute that Robson, long ago nicknamed \u201cDobby\u201d after the house elf in Harry Potter, is worthy of a slice of late career luck. For a while he was the sharpest footballing scrum-half in the country, only to spend three years in and around the England squad without gaining a full cap. Even after Eddie Jones belatedly relented in 2019, Robson\u2019s career was then cruelly interrupted by deep vein thrombosis<\/a> and all of his 14 England caps were earned from the bench.<\/p>\n

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On top of that came the Wasps debacle in October 2022<\/a> which scattered a promising squad far and wide, with no certainty of outcome. Small wonder Robson sounds quietly delighted to be given another go in the Prem. \u201cMy body feels good still and mentally I feel better than ever. I feel pretty calm and level-headed \u2026 and I still love competing. Until that love starts withering I\u2019ll keep trucking along.\u201d<\/p>\n

While, ideally, winning some more big games as well. Robson singles out Phil Cokanasiga as a teammate to watch this season \u2013 \u201cIf he gets his game going it\u2019s going to look good\u201d \u2013 but his days as an exile in France have also reinforced the importance of making your own luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe style of rugby in the Prem is brilliant; every team will be saying the same things about wanting to start fast and put in a big performance. It\u2019s going to be exciting, edge-of-the-seat stuff and hopefully we can be a part of that. But, ultimately, I\u2019ve not come back for a jolly. I want to come back and be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most players returning home from the French Top 14 have had a life-enhancing experience and Dan Robson is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782364","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\/782364","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=782364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}