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Posted 383 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 390 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…
Posted 403 days ago
By Gavin Mortimer
IS THIS going to be the season when Toulon finally climb back to the summit of French rugby? The last time they were there was exactly twenty years ago when a side containing the likes of Aubin Hueber and Yann Delaigue defeated Biarritz 19-14 to win the Bouclier de Brennus. Many hard years followed that triumph until Mourad…
Posted 439 days ago
Toulouse backs coach Jean-Baptiste Elissalde couldn’t help crowing after his side’s impressive defeat of Stade Francais last Saturday, writes Gavin Mortimer.
In front of 80,000 fans at the Stade de France, Toulouse warmed up for this weekend’s trip to Edinburgh with a clinical 22-18 victory to consolidate their position at the head of the Top 14. Afterwards Elissalde tweeted: “Regards our…
Posted 467 days ago
By Gavin Mortimer
PARIS is known as the City of Love but frankly who cares about all that soppy stuff when it comes to Le Crunch? Whispering sweet nothings on the Champs-Élysées or wetting your whistle in the Frog & Rosbif…? It’s a no brainer for every red-blooded rugby fan, so here is the Rugby World guide to where to go…
Posted 469 days ago
HAVING waited three weeks to get this game underway, no one playing or watching on Sunday wanted to hear the final whistle at the Stade de France – at least not until someone got that decisive last score. Of course given that Ireland were under the most pressure and in the final play of the game it was their scramble defence that saved them from another defeat in Paris, perhaps in hindsight they will be grateful for the referee’s whistle.
Posted 469 days ago
THE Sunday Times ran a piece last weekend in which Rugby World’s very own Stephen Jones interviewed Philippe Saint-André. The coach of France was his normal affable self, buttering up the English ahead of Sunday’s encounter byacknowledging his “debt to England rugby” on account of the formative years he spent coaching at Gloucester and Sale.
Posted 471 days ago
France clawed their way back from an 11-point deficit to draw with Ireland in the rearranged RBS 6 Nations fixture at the Stade de France. The men in green started well, and Tommy Bowe scored two tries in the first half, silencing the French crowd. But Wesley Fofana scored his third Championship try in the 51st minute, and the swing in momentum saw France even the scores thanks to Morgan Parra’s boot. Ireland couldn’t convert a surge of pressure into points in the final quarter of the match, as France’s defence proved to be water tight.
Posted 473 days ago
SO, here we go again. Three weeks and a day after the teams were left kicking their heels in Siberian Paris, France and Ireland meet to decide who will chase Wales hardest to the RBS 6 Nations finishing line. Since that shambolic postponement,
Posted 477 days ago
By Al Dymock
AT post-match press conferences, stats sheets are handed out by busy looking officials. You get the certified breakdown of what happened during the game and you can pick over where and why things didn’t go to plan.
After Scotland lost 17-23 against France, I crumpled the sheet up and threw it away.
The thing is that if you were to…
