French rugby Updates : Le café du Rugby.

sydthebeat wrote: »

It's not a great advertising for top 14 rugby. .. terrible game really.

Yep, terrible game and Montpellier were very very poor considering they were at home.

Montpellier can be a bit flakey at home and certainly not as strong at home as other French teams. I was seriously impressed when Ulster won there in the Heineken Cup last year but some of the home defeats Montpellier have had since have taken the gloss off that result.

James Hart comes up with the goods. Trailing by 30-24 home to Lyon with a few minutes left he scored a try and they won 34-30.

That stadium is packed to the rafters. Even in sellouts you see empty seats but there are none. Losing 21-15 though.

Misses what was probably an 80-85% kick. Toulouse well and truly motoring now.

I was surprised the ref didn't go under the posts when the maul came down.

matthew8 wrote: »

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

nc6000 wrote: »

Yep, terrible game and Montpellier were very very poor considering they were at home.

vienne86 wrote: »

Missed that as I was out.....recoreded it, but too tired to watch it now. But I'm stunned - it's a shocking result for Montpellier.

Depressing result as a supporter really... Such an "empty" game. We just had nothing on offer. Absolutely nothing .

We seemed to have lost the plot with Trinh-Duc injury. Hopefully we can recover before his comeback or we'll join our fellow Catalan neighbour in ProD2 next year :rolleyes:...

nc6000 wrote: »

Montpellier can be a bit flakey at home and certainly not as strong at home as other French teams. I was seriously impressed when Ulster won there in the Heineken Cup last year but some of the home defeats Montpellier have had since have taken the gloss off that result.

Montpellier is probably the most overrated team in the world (:pac:) on this forum. I guess our healthy president is a part of it. Galthié another one. But having followed most of their games for over 20 years now, I know where we're coming from and I still think we're far enough from the very top.
We had one glorious opportunity to take on the Brennus some years ago and despite an heroic game we blew it (we had our chances in the beginning of the second half but couldn't score and increase the gap ... and we knew Toulouse would eventually come back). Since that game we lost all (or at least the vast majority) of our big key games. That has to be telling something. My take on it is that we're not there yet. Not that far. But not there. Yet...

I remember debating here after that home defeat to Ulster saying it was no surprise to me. I think many are blowing MHR up out of all proportions. When Ulster was winning the HCup we were just in the process of building the club. I see a lot of comments in here about all the money generated in the Top14 but if you have a closer look at it there's only one club which is actually getting the results. RCT. Have you ever wondered why? Why RM92 and to a lesser extent Montpellier are not getting there? Well you can't buy history. If Racing does have a long rugby history it contains huge gaps, notably during the whole 90ies and it was rejuvenated recently around a business project. While Toulon have a long and rich history but also a president who is a deep lover of the game and its town before being an entrepreneur. I'm not sure the same applies to Lorenzetti and Altrad and I'm sure it does make a difference at some point (though Racing & Montpellier are 2 completely different and incomparable examples).

Thanks vienne86 .

Actually, since you're interested, I can expand a bit on what I was saying in my previous post. I must warn about a very long post though .


My point turns around the contextual situation regarding each club. I mean the local, regional and national dimension and the demographical, economical, geographical and historical situations surrounding each club is a key to understand how they work, succeed or fail.
The comparison between Racing and Toulon is actually an almost perfect example of that.


Racing is one of the oldest French rugby clubs. They actually won the first Brennus. English entrepreneurs developed rugby and created the first clubs in Paris in the late XIXth century. Racing was created in 1882, Stade Français in 1883 and Olympique in 1888. They created the French championship which was only a Paris championship at the start. In the meantime rugby developed in Bordeaux due to the combined efforts of an influential and important English presence there (thanks to commercial exchanges for Bordeaux wines already ) and the will of some French educationist (Philippe Tissié) who had the will to change the scholar system in France by notably introducing sports into it. A well-known figure of this evolution is Pierre de Coubertin who's the father of modern Olympic Games. Bordeaux is authorised to participate in the French championship in 1899 and immediately win it. From the successful implantation of rugby in Bordeaux, the sport deeply took roots in the South of France down to Toulon and up to Lyon.

Coming back to Racing, the thing is they had a first gap in the 30ies-40ies but most importantly a huge 30 years gap between the late 50ies and the late 80ies. But they quickly declined again in the 90ies until the arrival of Lorenzetti if I sum it up. So over the last 50 years there was very little to (re-)develop a support there. Paris is a huge metropolis. By far the main sports club there is Paris Saint Germain. With the arrival of the Qatari entrepreneur the club experienced a huge boost in its recent development. Handball built up a good project and benefitted from it. Basket-ball could also join in. Volley-ball is deeply implemented in Paris now for years and are a major stable force of the domestic league. All these sports have a dedicated support. In addition, in the beginning of the 90ies, Max Guazzini successfully bet on the (re-)implantation of rugby in Paris with the (re-)development of Stade Français. So it'll take more than a scattering of stars for Racing to (re-)gather a fanbase. The global context is not that favourable for them.

In my opinion they'll do better with a more transparent mid to long term sport project. What I see is a business project with a lot of stars on the pitch and on the bench, with the new super-modern stadium but I can't tell what their mid-term sport objective is. I mean Lorenzetti may have said they want to win the Brennus and/or the HCup but these are just words, what about the facts. What about the pitch? What's the gameplan? What's with the coaches? Berbizier built the core of what they are now. He brought them back to the elite. But apparently conflicts with players got him sacked. Where are these players now? He got former Castres coaches who have a reputation for a very old style restrictive rugby game. In the meantime the 2 number 10 Irish stars are brought in. How come you accommodate an attacking-Leinster-educated Sexton with Labit-Travers restrictive rugby? What's O'Gara real role? He honestly won't teach Sexton how to kick. Does he bring his experience? Does he "teach" the team how to deal with pressure? We don't really know. That sounds obscure. The team is changing drastically every year too, which doesn't help to create a team spirit and doesn't bring some continuity to the project.


On the other hand, you have Toulon. No major gaps in their history. Rugby is the main sport of the town and in the area around it (like in Toulouse or Perpignan). So it gathers the whole region behind it. Toulon had a glorious era in the 80ies-90ies (2 Brennus, 2 finals, 2 semi-finals - add to those 2 semis of the Challenge Yves du Manoir) notably with their iconic coach Daniel Herrero. They got relegated in 2000 by the LNR because the club accumulated an important financial deficit.

Then Boudjelal arrived as a supporter with huge cash (he kinda presented himself like that at the beginning). He had many failures (they got relegated in 2006, had a disappointing proD2 season in 2007, a very tough newly-promoted Top14 season in 2009) and recognised his own ones (a team is not an addition of stars and needs continuity in the project). I actually remember him saying he was new to rugby (as a director) and needed to learn. And he learnt from his mistakes. He never dismissed its academy (Toulon young teams are pretty successful) despite not using it the most cleverly sometimes (the example of Fickou sprouts in mind immediately).

But over the years he built a consistent team around a core which stayed the same. He continued trying some bets here and there (his rejuvenation of Wilkinson is a dream come true for him) but always kept these into the mid-term project. He said it many times, he wanted the Brennus, the ultimate dream for him as a RCT supporter. He referred many times to his youth when Herrero was the coach. But he didn’t only speak, he acted. Look at the recent coaches’ history for instance. He offered a French Riviera lifestyle end of career to Umaga. But then he kept him as a coach for 2 years trying to keep some continuity between ProD2 and Top14. It wasn't a huge success but they stayed up nonetheless. Then PSA built a competitive team for 3 years. The next step was a more successful (and pragmatic) coach with Laporte. So if you analyse it in details, RCT current success is not just about the huge money invested. It's an enterprise alright but an enterprise which works well. If you look at it from this point of view it deserves success. What we're naively told at school: work well and you'll succeed.


Finally, Montpellier is a complete different animal. Rugby there has no long history. In fairness sports in general has no long history. And well the town itself has a fairly recent history. Its birth only dates from the Middle-Age. Anyway the town developed around its influential aristocracy in the XVIIIth century. Vineyard business and cultural activity grew importantly in the XIXth century. It's a bourgeois academic town (e.g. the oldest active medicine faculty in the world) which enters the XXth century. Sports was not the main concern them though it did develop a bit in the early 1900 (notably football) but mainly it's the creation of the Montpellier University Club (MUC) in 1921 which saw the modern birth of sports in the town. MUC is a multisport association which essentially developed around its famous Volley-ball section.

Then it's only in the mid 70ies-early 80ies that the local politics decided to develop the town around sports activity and promote "professional" sports. The football club got rejuvenated in 1974. Its president wanted to create a multisport club (on the model of FC Barcelona) but the mayor refused (afraid of the former gaining too much local power :rolleyes:...). In that period, all major sports association (bar Volley-ball) emancipated from the MUC and the main current sports professional club got created. The successful handball club in 1982. MHR in 1986. etc... Since Montpellier is not a huge town (~ 260k inhabitants), all the sports associations developed around their academy. it's also part of some kind of deal with the local politics which fund most of them for that purpose. The idea in the early 80ies was to develop social cohesion and children education and development notably through sports. Montpellier is considered now as one of the most "sporty town" in France giving easy access to many sports to the masses. I actually benefitted from it playing judo, handball and mainly ice hockey during my youth and teens, which was great.

Now it can always be better and I for one regret that we didn't take the opportunity when the rugby and handball club got their new stadium/arena in the last 10 years to gather and create a multisport club around a multisport arena. There was space around and instead of the new shopping centre area (which is not that successful anyway) to create a new sports town inside the town. They actually built the new ice ring there. The Olympic swimming pool could/should have been built with it. The rugby stadium could have been built there. Ditto the new arena the handball club was asking for years. Our football stadium is located in an area liable to flooding (we're paying a heavy price to it this year with our stadium twice flooded and unusable until the New Year) and so a new one could have been projected there. This part of the town has easy links to the motorway, high-speed train line and urban area tramways and buses. The football academy is also close by. Ah well, it could have been like a permanent Olympic village. The shopping centre could have been implemented in the area anyway.

Coming back to the rugby club, it's experiencing a healthy development for 15-20 years now. It attracted new investors (like our current president, Mohed Altrad). There is a mid to long term project around Galthié. Altrad has no big knowledge of rugby but at least he seems to be delegating the important tasks to the right competent persons and to will a long term participation in the club. His communication about it was pretty clear. And not only I like it but find it a sane and sensible management. Way off its predecessor who claimed (right after a good run of autumn victories) MHR was to win the top14 in the coming years just to be hammered twice in a row by Clermont and Toulouse I think and putting the club in a difficult situation (we almost got relegated that year in the end) with his fanciful decisions. He actually left as quickly as he had arrived. All for the better.

Now, we're progressing slowly but steadily. We're expected to make the final phases. We play each year to qualify for Europe. But that's it. We're there. And no further. And I think it's already a pretty good development. We now need to climb that last step, the toughest one for sure. And we seem to stagnate... The fact we're generally toothless without our 2 home-grown stars (Trinh-Duc and Ouedraogo) is worrying. Especially since they don't seem to have any successors... yet. We’ll see. It’ll be interesting how we react in the coming weeks to ERC failure and these last 2 top14 defeats.

sydneybound wrote: »

That's very interesting information, more of that the better!


My hope for the season is that La Rochelle stay up and Bordeaux get to the final for their fans however that said I don't want them to win the league for another few years yet, I don't want success to come to them too easily. Racing's new stadium Arena 92 looks very impressive from the plans, surely they'll pick up a few more fans when they make the move. 

Those are my exact hopes as well. I would love Bordeaux to be in Europe and I would love Leinster to be in their group - no question about going to that away fixture - I'd go for a week!

Funny enough I was in France when that La Rochelle v Toulouse match was on. I thought about driving over there, about a two hour drive, but thought it wouldn't be a great match, and Toulouse would murder the minnows. How wrong I was, and when I watched on TV and saw how brlliant the La Rochelle fans are, I kicked myself.

Enjoy your forthcoming trips to France!

thomond2006 wrote: »

It looks like AAC could be on his way to Bordeaux after the World Cup. That's an excellent coup if true.

Oh wow! Where did you see that? Some catch for Bordeaux.

Swiwi. wrote: »

You should be happy too, vienne86, Luke Braid has signed for Bordeaux. Quality 7, at one stage I would have had him in AB squads ahead of Matt Todd. NZ always has good 7s, it's traditionally one of our stronger positions, so competition is always tough, but he's a very good openside. Sort of reminds me of David Wallace, that style of flanker.

Excellent! Bordeaux are so entertaining and are going well and obviously have high ambitions. Brilliant fans too. I love them!

Swiwi. wrote: »

I really don't watch much Top 14, but your enthusiasm for Bordeaux and their style of play might tempt me to catch one of their games...

AAC + Braid are good signings.

Bordeaux are awesome! AAC will have fun over there. I'm really hoping they make the playoffs and the Champions Cup next year.

One of their most famous victories:



Their young Fijian winger Talebula scored 15 tries in the Top14 last season: