French rugby Updates : Le café du Rugby.

former legend wrote: »

I see poor old Rupeni Caucaunibuca is up to his old tricks. Was due to arrive back in France yesterday and didn't show, the Agen staff haven't a clue where he is.

At the buffet? #oldonesare . . .

thomond2006 wrote: »

The relegation battle will be very close. Any of the bottom six could go down and there is only 6 points between the top and bottom of that group.

Not if Toulon hand a team 5 points
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/toulon-threaten-forfeit-castres-match-192128571--spt.html

molloyjh wrote: »

So basically he's complaining that his team is full of internationals and they haven't spent any time developing younger local talent.

If only there was a way to resolve that..... :rolleyes:

Mourad has said he might have to play. Now I'm sure that won't be too bad for the ratings. Now if only they were playing Clermont and Jamie Cudmore!!!

It's a bit mad how many players they have absent. They are down 2 looseheads (Menini and Chiocci will both play for France), 3 hookers (Bruno and Burden injured, Guirado will play for France) and 3 tightheads (Hayman injured, Castro with Italy and Chilachava with Georgia).

They can still field a senior frontrow with Barcella, Orioli and Bougherara. I'd say there will be more local talent in the Toulon team than the Castres side!

thomond2006 wrote: »

Mourad has said he might have to play. Now I'm sure that won't be too bad for the ratings. Now if only they were playing Clermont and Jamie Cudmore!!!

It's a bit mad how many players they have absent. They are down 2 looseheads (Menini and Chiocci will both play for France), 3 hookers (Bruno and Burden injured, Guirado will play for France) and 3 tightheads (Hayman injured, Castro with Italy and Chilachava with Georgia).

They can still field a senior frontrow with Barcella, Orioli and Bougherara. I'd say there will be more local talent in the Toulon team than the Castres side!

Only because the foreign talent in Toulon are either injured or still required by their national sides. In other words they can afford a better class of foreign player.

Leinster lost 2 LHs, 2 hookers and 2 THs themselves, along with 2 second rows, 4 back rows, 2 half backs, 2 centres, 2 wingers and a full back. There is no talk from them about forfeiting. Look at Edinburgh bringing in club players because they were missing 18 to injury and 2 to national camp last week. And now they lost another 2 in the RDS on top of that. Nobody there is talking about forfeiting games.

This is more mouth from a club that has dedicated themselves to buying their way to the top and then giving out about the impacts it has on them during international windows. The level of whinging about things like that or about referees or whatever that come from Toulon is ridiculous. They are favourites to win the European Cup for a third year running, something nobody has ever done before. They have come off the back of a double and will undoubtedly be pushing for that again this season, all on the back of money, money, money. And still they complain about how things are somehow unfair on them!?

Laporte is being a child and just making noise.

"I won't go to Castres if I don't have a document signed by the League that says if there's a problem with the youngsters, they'll take responsibility.

You'll go to Castres, Bernard. You won't have a signed document. You'll play your fixture

former legend wrote: »

OK, his comments are a bit ridiculous, but does he not have a point?

Edit: I'll clarify; the LNR should not be scheduling matches during the international window, just like the unions should not be scheduling internationals outside the window.

If they didn't schedule domestic games during the international windows then exactly how long would the Top14 go on for? If you take 26 weeks for the regular season plus 3 weeks for the knock-outs, then add the 6 weeks of European pool stages and 3 weeks for those knock-outs that will give you 38 weeks. Now add the international fixtures, which during the domestic season accounts for at least 8 weeks if you exclude the rest weekends in the 6 Nations. That's 46 weeks. Now add the summer tours which would account for 4 weeks, totaling 50 weeks. And we haven't even factored in pre-season into that either.

The calendar is simply far too congested to not play domestic games during the international window. The Pro12 gets a bit of a break but still has games scheduled during the AIs and 6 Nations. The same is true of the AP. There are more than enough teams in France to ensure that national call-up doesn't affect clubs as much as it does provinces in Ireland. The foreign players that they choose to buy in with money that the rest of us don't have and can't compete with inevitably come with international strings attached. It's the nature of the game. If they aren't prepared to accept that then they shouldn't buy those players in the first place.

former legend wrote: »

Yeah, that's the TL;DR version of what I meant. In an ideal world, there would be no club matches during the windows and no international games outside it. And (brace yourselves) that's why I agree with Bruce Craig that we need to throw the rugby calendar out and start from scratch. The schedule we have now is a Frankenstein's monster that is based on the remnants of the amateur era and should be dumped. The only problem is deciding what would replace it.

Re: your second point, yes there are many teams in France so they should be able to absorb the absences, but the international players are not spread evenly among them so the better teams are disproportionately punished for having better players. You can point to Toulon and say, well, they're all imported mercenaries, but for years Toulouse were the bulk suppliers of the French team and were often stripped bare.

It's just bluster from Laporte, of course they're going to fulfil the fixture, but his underlying points are somewhat valid and this issue is not going away.

In fairness the huge positive to scheduling the games the way we do is that we get to bring through younger guys and develop some real squad depth. Change it around and that will happen less. I always look forward to the international window from a Leinster perspective because we get to have a look at some of the guys that we have high hopes for and this helps their development no end.

Sure there are always teams that suffer more than others during the international window. Look at Leinster compared to Connacht for example. But that's been highlighted to an extreme by Toulon due to the squad they've bought. They are then going up against other teams that have some money themselves (not as much) and have bought in guys who don't have the same international commitments.

So in the Pro12 while we might face off against Ospreys during the international window with a depleted squad, Ospreys are similarly depleted and so it balances out. Because of the way it's going in France Toulon are hit a lot harder than Castres (using thomonds earlier example) because of who they have chosen (and that's the key word here) to buy. So the same level of balance isn't there any more. But they still chose to buy these guys. They did so because over the course of the whole season it works out for them. They could choose to buy guys with no international commitments, and this wouldn't be an issue. But then they'd have to sacrifice the quality over the entire season and they aren't prepared to do that.

This is simply a case of a team that wants to have their cake and eat it too (as stupid as saying as that is). Another example of a team who often complain about refs after they win games or complain about the fact that they knowingly bought internationals but now want financial compensation every time those internationals go to their national team. The game is not there to facilitate them despite what they might think.

I think I'll go to that. Great idea.

BoarHunter wrote: »

LNR just announced TOP14 2015-2016 Final will be played at the Camp Nou of Barcelona hoping to return a 100K people best ever Rugby attendance.

I want a Ticket already !

That's a great call by LNR.

sydneybound wrote: »

Toulon/Montpellier fans will be delighted as its a much closer drive than Paris. Its a better journey for Toulouse and Bordeaux (only slightly) by car too.

I always felt that Spain with the Basque region on the boarder (and in) France is such an untapped rugby country. Hopefully this should help the game there somewhat.

Do you mean Catalan region?

The Basque region isn't that untapped as Biarritz would often play games in the Anoeta in Donosti.

Perpignan have also played games in the Olympic stadium in Barcelona before.

Brive leading away to Montpellier 25-3. Has to be the shock of the season.