Armitage: Method is Mourad’s madness
Steffon Armitage, the player denied England caps because he chose to play in France, has his own view of the storm created by his former paymaster Mourad Boudjellal at Toulon.
Whereas players all over the world queue to denounce Boudjellal’s apparently outrageous attack on some of his most renowned players, Armitage says he has seen it all before… and it works.
Who can say he is wrong with Toulon, at the wrong end of the table, beating Pau 38-11 with a bonus point to boot? Armitage, now with Pau, said: “It is always like that at Toulon when things are not going well before an important match.
“Mourad has a way of annoying his dressing-room on purpose so they go to their very limits. It worked every time when I was there.
“I won’t say I agreed with his way of doing things because it could be humiliating, but there was a reaction. That is how we always qualified for Top 14 semi-finals.”
Five tries from a rejuvenated lineup – minus banished Kiwi star Julian Savea – had home fans roaring on this rare occasion and tend to support Armitage’s reasoning.
Especially, perhaps, in the case of Welsh scrum-half Rhys Webb, a target of Boudjellal’s outburst. Webb opened the scoring for Toulon with his first try in their colours in just 11 minutes and greeted it with a mixture of anger and defiance.
Not long before he was withdrawn around the hour, his vision allowed him to send winger Daniel Ipkefan over for the fourth try from a wonderfully measured kick into his arms.
At one point, team boss Patrice Collazo appeared to tell Webb to shut up and get on with the game.
Argentine flanker Facunda Isa scored Toulon’s second try, both scored in the absence of Pau’s yellowcarded Fijian centre Jale Vatubua.
Despite Pau scoring their only try soon after through hooker Quentin Lespiaucq, Toulon surged further ahead with another by Fijian centre Josua Tuisova.
Antoine Meric, substitute for Webb, grabbed the fifth in the final seconds to give Toulon a glimpse of a brighter future.
Not that ex-All Black Andrew Mehrtens would seem ready to give Boudjellal any part in their success.
He said: “Mourad is like a child playing in a fantasy football league. He likes to sign the big names and the bigger the better.
“He insisted on talking to the players in the dressing-room when things were not going well. He would tell us we were done for and, whatever it cost him, he would tear up all our contracts if we didn’t win and we would never play for another club in France.”
Didn’t look as though it did Mehrtens any harm. He won promotion to the Top 14 in his only season with Toulon, who went on to win domestic and European glory. Times are different now, though, and it will be fascinating to see whether Toulon can build on this momentum.
There is no stopping Toulouse who shrugged off the absence of key internationals yet again to beat Montpellier 27-14.
They extended their Top 14 lead – Clermont in second face a formidable challenge at Lyon today – in a game they had to work hard to win. The performance owed much to Aussie fly-half Zack Holmes who scored 15 of their points, including a try.
Quite a way to celebrate a new twoyear contact midway through his first season after joining from La Rochelle.
South African scrum-half Jacques du Plessis gave struggling Montpellier an early lead with a try from behind his pack.
But, once Toulouse had moved ahead with a penalty try which cost Montpellier lock Konstantine Mikautadze a yellow card, Holmes concluded a sumptuous move after the break. Flanker Francois Cros sealed the points with a last-minute try.
The three clubs with only a relegation battle in view, Perpignan, Grenoble and Agen were all in action.
While Grenoble went down bravely 47-31 at Bordeaux-Begles, Agen took a step towards survival with a 20-13 win at Perpignan.
This was a match Perpignan, stranded at the bottom despite a shock victory at Montpellier, simply had to win to retain any chance of staying up. Instead, they suffered their 15th defeat from 16 games while scoring just one try from Tongan winger Lotima Faingaanuka.
Agen, who narrowly avoided the drop last season, gave themselves a firm platform to repeat that success by matching Pau above them on points, nine clear of Grenoble.
Grenoble, now clear favourites to have their future decided by a play-off with a Division Two outfit, reduced the size of defeat with a last-minute try from scrum-half Lilian Saseras.
But the game was up long before that despite them having a healthy 177 lead after just 20 minutes.
That was thanks to tries from Tongan centre Alaska Taufa and lock Hans Nkinsi.
But four second-half tries for Bordeaux – seven in all – left Grenoble staring at the abyss.
Bordeaux will have been thrilled by the return to action of French international starlet Matthieu Jalibert, who came on for the second half after missing a year with ankle ligament damage.
In the late game Stade Francais surprised La Rochelle 27-14 on the road.
“Mourad is like a child playing in a fantasy football league. He likes to sign the big names and the bigger the better” - Andrew Mehrtens