Turmoil at Toulon as Boudjellal mixes his coaches
Not sure that impassioned fans of Toulon would have appreciated Matt Giteau’s shaft of Aussie wit in the twittersphere. Giteau, generally considered Toulon’s finest player at fly-half or centre, made fun of the complete mess his club have got themselves into over the appointment of their coaching staff.
With an image of himself by his car door, he tweeted: “On my way for an interview to be the coach here. Apparently, everyone has a chance.”
And his compatriot winger Drew Mitchell joined in by re-tweeting the joke with Toulon ready to return to training on Tuesday.
That promises to be an interesting assembly with the dressing-room hotchpotch concocted by president Mourad Boudjellal.
Complete with head coach Diego Dominguez, who resigned over the arrival of new scrum-coach Marc Dal Maso, but changed his mind at the eleventh hour. But for how long ?
Dal Maso, who performed the same job so well with Eddie Jones in preparing Japan for the World Cup, is hardly welcomed either by Jacques Delmas, ex-Biarritz and Stade Francais hooker, whose exclusive job was to handle the scrum under previous manager Bernard Laporte.
In other words, dressing-room tensions in the early days are inevitable with some key players close to Delmas like Juanne Smith and Juan Martin Fernadez Lobbe.
Throw into the mix the refusal of Wales to accept Toulon’s signing of one-day-per-week defence coach Shaun Edwards and you can see Boudjellal still has some negotiating ahead of him.
He is in no mood to worry about hurt feelings after blaming Toulon’s defeat by Racing 92 in the Top 14 final on Delmas for allowing Georgian prop Levan Chilacheva to remove his boots when he was badly required for a decisive scrum in the last seconds.
And the loss to Racing in the quarter-final of the European Champions Cup was equally painful. Boudjellal said: “Defeats tell us things and we cannot ignore what they say.
“The Top 14 final taught us that we had to get our desire back but also that we had lost our ability to analyse from the bench because Delmas was all alone, unlike in other years.
“Steve Meeehan watched the game from the stands. Okay, but I have the feeling that, if Pierre Mignoni (previous backs coach) had been there, the scenario would have been different.
“I had no doubt at all about Marc Dal Maso after that game.We had to have him in the staff for the extra he brings. I have wanted to work with Marc for a long time. I have history with him. When Toulon were promoted to the Top 14, Dal Maso was coaching Mont de Marsan, who joined the elite at the same time.
“Our budget was 14 million euros and theirs 3.5 million. At the time, I thought: ‘Our finances have got us up but, for the Montois, their coach must count for a lot’.
“I went in for him when Olivier Azam left (for Oyonnax) and that brought me a clash with Laporte, who wanted to work with Delmas.”
Now that Dominguez has taken the same view, Boudjellal has put him squarely in his place at the considerable risk of losing him.
He explained: “Until there is proof to the contrary, I am still the boss at Toulon and I intend to stay so. From the moment I make a decision, the people who work have to accept it.
“So Dominguez has two choices. Either he works with Dal Maso or, as he has told me, he leaves. I do not understand his reticence.
“Does Diego want to work in his cocoon, to be untroubled? I don’t know, but I do need to put a little pressure on my coaches for them to be competitive, too.
“What I expect from the arrival of Dal Maso is that no-one feels comfortable because he is going to take up some space and the others are going to raise their competence levels through contact with him.”
Boudjellad had two long meetings with Dominguez last week, but the peace is fragile. Many Toulon fans would not regret the departure of Dominguez, a wonderful fly-half for Argentina, Italy and Stade Francais, but a managerial rookie at this level.
In fact, Boudjellal is not even guaranteeing that Dominguez, the man he co-opted last December to understudy Laporte, will be present for the restart this week.
He said: “I cannot state that he will be there. If he is, he will be in charge of the technical staff. If he isn’t, it will be of his own volition.”
Both Dominguez and Delmas are still under contract. Boudjellal is trying to make sure that any compensation they could seek if leaving their posts is reduced to the bare minimum.
He reckons he is only following the example of Southern Hemisphere and English clubs in multiplying specialist coaches.
“I am certain Dal Maso and Delmas are compatible,” he concludes.“What is more, you can almost make an anagram of their names.”
As if to say Giteau is not the only one who can apply a light touch to the crisis.
“Dominguez has two choices. Either he works with Dal Maso or he leaves” - Mourad Boudjellal