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Posted 111 days ago
IT WAS heavily assumed that France, with all their resources and illustrious red-carpet players, would enter Rome and destroy the Azzzurri. However, before the anthems had even finished there was a sense the aristocrats of the Top 14 were in for a nasty surprise.
Posted 114 days ago
ROMAIN TAOFIFENUA is a big lad. Just how big remains something of a mystery. According to which paper you read in France, his weight in the last few months has fluctuated between 125 kgs and 133 kgs. Then again, assuming the official Perpignan website hasn’t got a wonky set of scales, Taofifenua comes in at an eye-wateringly impressive 140kg, making him in all probability the heaviest player in professional rugby.
Posted 143 days ago
JONNY WILKINSON brought down the curtain on 2012 in fine style, signing off with a 26-point haul as Toulon crushed Perpignan 46-13 and consolidated their position as the Top 14’s dominant side in the first half of the season. Toulon have won 12 of their 14 matches, giving them a seven point lead at the top of the table over Clermont with reigning champions Toulouse lying third a further three points adrift.
Posted 198 days ago
SO FREDDY’S back. For the first time since 2007, Michalak will start a home Test match for France and Les Bleus will be all the better for it. The 30-year-old fly-half got the nod over Montpellier’s Francois Trinh-Duc, and Maxime Machenaud has kept out Morgan Parra at scrum-half. “We’re continuing from where we left off against Argentina,” explained French coach Philippe Saint-André, a reference to France’s last Test outing, a record 49-10 thrashing of the Pumas in June.
Posted 242 days ago
“MICHALAK IS back” screams the headline in this week’s Midi Olympique, alongside a photograph of Toulon’s Freddie, a player for whom the word ‘mercurial’ could have been invented. Michalak played a prominent part in easing his club to their sixth consecutive win of the season last Saturday, a 33-12 defeat of Castres in which Jonny Wilkinson scored 18 of the points.
Posted 269 days ago
By Gavin Mortimer, Rugby World writer
FOR A man who two years ago was reputedly the highest paid rugby player in the world, Sebastien Chabal embarked upon the latest stage of his career at the weekend with less fanfare than he’s been used to in the past few years. The 34-year-old No 8, once of Sale Sharks and Racing Metro, made…
Posted 282 days ago
By Gavin Mortimer, Rugby World writer
THE OLYMPICS are over and the football season is about to get underway. But don’t worry, it’s not all depressing news on the sports front. The 2012-13 rugby season is just round the corner in the British Isles while over in France the new Top 14 campaign kicks off this weekend.
You have to feel for…
Posted 339 days ago
IN CASE you missed it what with all the misery surrounding the Home Nations narrow defeats at the weekend, France also suffered at the hands of the southern hemisphere. Their 23-20 loss to Argentina in Cordoba was Les Bleus eighth defeat in 11 matches against the Pumas, writes Gavin Mortimer.
France have the chance to level the two-Test series this Saturday…
Posted 359 days ago
AS THE Home Nations gear up for Down Under, across the Channel in France the Top 14 is coming to the boil, writes Gavin Mortimer.
The French domestic season is a bit like Simon Shaw’s career in that one wonders if it will ever end. Ten months after the 2011-12 campaign began we have four clubs left standing.
Saturday’s semi-final pits the…
Posted 366 days ago
IN FRANCE they call them ‘les barrages’, in English we’d call them ‘play-offs’; perhaps the best description is the Top 14 quarter-finals, which is in effect what unfolds on Saturday when Castres host Montpellier and Racing Metro visit Toulon, writes Gavin Mortimer.
At stake is a semi-final place the following weekend with the winner of the first tie facing Toulouse and…
