Brive’s man of steel was the architect of All Black slaying
CHRISTOPHE Lamaison had absolutely no gas and you can count on the fingers of one hand the occasions he produced a sidestep or jink but his name, long missing, should be added to the list of French rugby legends. He above all others turned around that incredible World Cup semi-final in 1999 with his 28 points haul which included a bit of everything – one try, two drop-goals, three conversions and four penalties. It was Lamaison who dared to challenge the All Blacks in the second half and sow the seeds of doubt and it was Lamaison who orchestrated the glories that followed. And then he did it again in the second Test of their miniseries in 2000 when he helped himself to 27 points – five penalties, three conversions and two drop-goals – when France won 42-33 at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille.
If you factor in the 16 points he kicked in the first Test of that series that’s 71 points in three consecutive matches against the All Blacks in just over a year. Nobody will ever better that.
Lamaison, in my experience, could be spectacularly moody and uncooperative with the Press and media and that might partially explain how he gets overlooked. For three seasons, from 1997 to 2000, he was, however, the main man in a sometimes spectacular French team, a cool assassin and very tough man in a crisis.
Playing mainly at centre, he helped France to the 1997 and 1998 Grand Slams and then, being utilised both at 10 and 12, he was the man of steel in the Brive back division that took the Heineken Cup by storm.
At one stage he seemed destined to join a Premiership club to see out his career but instead he played for Bayonne and then surprised everybody by opting for the quiet life and playing out his days as a semi-professional with Saint-Medard en Jalles, which must have seemed long way from putting New Zealand to the sword.