Wasps ace Flament is aiming to take on WORLD!
WASPS STAR REVEALS AMBITION TO PLAY IN TOP 14 AFTER DYNAMIC DISPLAYS
It’s my country’s league. I grew up with it, I dream about playing in the league. Thibaud Flament
WASPS’ breakthrough player of the season, Thibaud Flament, has revealed his ambitions to represent France and play in the Top 14.
The Frenchman is understood to be one season into a two-year Academy contract for the Gallagher Premiership club but has risen to the first-team challenge this term making 16 appearances before the season was suspended following the coronavirus outbreak.
His fantastic displays have attracted interest from his homeland with
French national newspapers speculating that Toulouse are hoping to secure his signature.
During an interview with AFP, he detailed his international ambitions.
He said: “I’m eyeing playing for France without any doubt. It would be great to play in a World Cup, and even more so in France.
“It’s my country’s league. I grew up with it, I dream about playing in the league. I’m really happy in the Premiership and I don’t wake up every morning saying ‘I absolutely have to go to the Top 14.’”
The French squad, for many years, has been selected exclusively from players from the Top 14.
While there is no rule in place prohibiting selection of overseas players, his international credentials would be strengthened by playing in the division.
Only a few years ago, the prospect of the second-row/ flanker playing Test rugby would have seem almost farfetched as him playing at the top level of English Rugby.
Having moved to England to study at Loughborough University, Flament was initially a fly-half for the institution’s fifth team filled with social rugby players. “He’d got some good height profile but he was very, very slim,” Loughborough Students head coach Gerard Mullen told the Coventry Telegraph during an interview in September 2019. “Our old director of rugby Dave Morris suggested that he give second row a go and he flour
ished. He played every game that year in the fifth team and they had a good season.
“Then we progressed him up the club a bit and he started to put some size on him.”
Mullen, who said Flament had ‘exceptional ball skills and offloading game,’ also pointed to a pivotal year the forward spent in Greater Buenos Aires, playing for Club Newman in the Argentinian Top 12 league.
Mullen added: “That went really well. “He came back to us and we were really amazed with his development and he played the whole year for our first team in National One, he was one of the stand-out players in the league.”
For now, Flament’s season is on hold but unlike most of his Wasps teammates, he is enjoying the surroundings of a rugby club. That is because he returned to the family home in Brussels where he has full access to a gym and training pitch thanks to the club his dad founded, Stade Ucclois.
“I’m very lucky. It’s obvious, I see other players, they have indoor bikes, rowing machines and some weights. I have that, but having a weights room and a field available is great. I’m lucky to have access to that,” he told AFP.
“It’s better for me here to work and train because everything at Wasps is closed, we don’t have access to the gym.”