Powerhouse Boks get the French firing
Brendan Gallagher looks at the history of great lock pairings during France’s golden eras of rugby
It’s been a while since France boasted a second row pairing to reckon with and for all the fine talk about French genius and flair – and its absence in recent years – that’s probably why they haven’t won a Grand Slam since 2010. Not enough grunt, no obvious enforcer, fallible lineout.
But now, finally, they seem to have unearthed such a combo even if the raw material has been shipped in from South Africa. In the opening three games Bernard Le Roux has probably been the player of the tournament with 78 tackles – mainly huge hits –and much good work elsewhere, with Paul Willemse not far behind. Much more of which anon.
The best French teams always have class operators in the boiler house. Sometimes they have been out and out brutes, sometimes village fete strongmen – I can think of three former French shot putt champions who found themselves packing down in Le deuxième ligne – while occasionally they have been freakish athletes and lineout kings. The great Fabian Pelous was probably all three.
Then names roll off the tongue nicely. France’s first Grand Slam in 1968 saw the bulky and teak tough duo of Elie Cestrer and Alain Pantefol combining while in 1977 they featured possibly the meanest, most dastardly, second row pairing in history in Jean Francois Imbernon and Michel Palmie. Nobody messed with those guys.
Slight less physical but arguably more athletic was the partnership of Jean Condom and Alain Lorieux which they looked to in the 80s while in the 90s the conveyor belt was working overtime, especially if your Christian name was Olivier. There were the outand-out strong men who could put it about – shot putters Olivier Merle and Olivier Brouzet – not to mention the lanky and extremely stroppy Olivier Roumat.
Pelous won 118 caps in tandem with the “Oliviers” while Morocco’s Abdelatif Benazzi won 76 caps for France once he made the switch from his native land and increasingly played at lock during the second phase of his career.
The last pairing of any real significance was the 2010 Grand Slam combo of Lionel Nallet – a world beater when in the mood, anonymous when not – and the mobile and occasionally inspired Julian Pierre who faded from the scene very quickly after a couple of impressive seasons at the coalface.
That was a long ten years ago but finally France have stumbled on a likely duo of itinerant South Africans who appear to have very different backgrounds but combine nicely enough. Le Roux is lean, athletic, volcanic, spikey, in your face and extrovert while Wilemse is massive, solid, very religious and quiet. Both have interesting back stories.
Le Roux has all the physical attributes of a Peter Steph du Toit or Eben Etzebeth but went virtually unnoticed and unremarked during his school and early college career in South Africa. And at an early age he was also inclined to pack his rucksack and hop on a plane to see the world. As a teenager he decamped to Amsterdam in 2008 and played for ASRV Ascrum RC there before kitting out for a few games at Border Cavaliers on his return.
It was there that he experienced a sliding doors moment. South Africa’s World Cup-winning coach Jake White had been tasked with revamping the Golden Lions and somewhere along the line had seen something in Le Roux that he liked. He offered the gangling young giant a modest squad contract and no promises –Test class locks and back rowers are ten a penny in South Africa and it’s a dog-eat-dog process to earn selection in the marquee provincial sides let alone the Springboks.
At the same time Racing 92, just promoted from ProD2 and not the allsinging, all-dancing megabucks club they soon morphed into, encountered major injury problems up front and needed somebody who could drop everything and take up a short term two-month contract. No promises.
Le Roux, who had been infected with the travel bug the previous year, considered his options as a young, free single man and chose Paris and has scarcely given South Africa or South African rugby a second thought since then.
He arrived as a completely unknown jobbing professional, fell in love with the country and its ways, developed apace as a player, sought French citizenship as soon as was permissible and opted for France as soon as it seemed remotely possible that he might one day be good enough to play Test rugby. That duly happened 2013, initially as a flanker with the move to lock coming in 2018. Le Roux is the kind of player who gives foreign imports a good name. Money had virtually nothing to do with his decision-making process and he had made the choice to embrace France and the French long before French honours came his way.
He has become a key man at Racing, a hard case up front to complement all their dazzling runners and such was his impact as he found his feet that he was the man who kept big money signing Dan Lydiate out of the team when the Welsh back row star arrived.
Le Roux is no stranger to controversy though, with yellow cards aplenty and a couple of bans, the first in 2015 for a stamp on Phil John at Parc y Scarlets and then again in 2018 for a dangerous tackle on French colleague Wesley Fofana when Racing were playing Clermont. The latter earned him a seven-week suspension. He lives close
“The best French teams always have class operators in the boiler house”
to the edge but he wouldn’t be the first France lock who fits that description.
The Willemse case is different but still nuanced. Born in Pretoria but brought up in Namibia whom he played for at U18 level at the Craven week competition, Willemse was on the radar but nonetheless a long way down the pecking order in the land of giants.
He had shown up well at the 2012 JWC which South Africa won and logged 20 odd starts for the Blue Bulls over two seasons when an offer came in from Grenoble, then, as seemingly always, struggling along in the lower depths of the Top 14.
Again it wasn’t a huge money deal designed to tempt him over to France with a view to ‘becoming’ French. He had no cache as a Test player or even somebody tipped for Springbok honours in the foreseeable future.
When Willemse looked around, however, he saw the likes of contemporaries such as Etzebeth, Lood Jager and du Toit, who was then playing lock. With the ageless Victor Matfield returning to the fray, he concluded that South Africa would probably get along just fine without him. France it was.
Like Le Roux, Wilemse fell for the country hook line and sinker and during an impressive first season with struggling Grenoble he caught the eye of that man Jake White who keeps popping up in these stories. White was at Montpellier at the time and recruiting heavily courtesy of Mohed Altrad’s millions.
This time the cheque book did come into play, it was decision time. Stay in France long term, commit to France, command a big salary at Montpellier and effectively cut ties with South Africa...or return home to an uncertain future. He chose the former and, having made that decision, it soon became obvious that as he filled out and added muscle to his bulk Willemse was becoming a considerable player.
French Federation president Bernard Laporte at the time was talking about stopping overseas players diluting the French team but when push came to shove and with a World Cup hoving into view there was predictably a rethink from Laporte, and Willemse, after qualifying by residency and being granted French citizenship, duly made his debut against Wales last February.
As a physical specimen, Willemse is Bakkies Botha to Le Roux’s Victor Matfield but he’s a clever player as well. He took that first half try against Wales, peeling around the front of the lineout, exceptionally well and it won’t surprise you to learn he has logged up 20 tries in 80-odd games for Montpellier. He knows the way to the line.
And then there was that tackle on Ken Owens which prevented a possible Wales try at the death.Welsh fans had better leave the room now because I thought it was one of the cleverest bits of play we have seen in the Six Nations this season.
Of course he knew the precarious nature of the situation, so he knew he couldn’t ostentatiously flap his arms around going for a random interception and obvious slap down.
To use the modern phrase he had to paint the right picture. So he fixed Owens square on for a tackle that needed to be made anyway, didn’t allow his eyes for one minute to flick to the ball and looked to make man and ball contact as Owens passed which is perfectly permissible within the laws.
It’s a matter of debate whether he hit Owens’ hand and ball simultaneously and whether the ball had been released at that point but it was close enough – especially in real time – for it to be impossible to prove that he had deliberately knocked the ball on.
It was top-class thinking, percentage rugby from Willemse which we might not fully appreciate until the next time the situation occurs when the defender will probably flap helplessly or instinctively at the ball and clearly be at fault. Brain as well as brawn, as is usually the case with the game’s best locks.
“Le Roux is no stranger to controversy with yellow cards aplenty and a couple of bans” “Brain as well as brawn is usually the case with the game’s best locks”