Top14 shun virus threat to go ahead on schedule
Yesterday’s Top 14 matches went ahead as scheduled, despite the French government imposing a ban on gatherings of more than 5,000 people ‘in confined spaces’ in a bid to control the spread of Covid-19.
The Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) said today’s two games at Bordeaux and Toulon – the last before the league takes a three-week break – will go-ahead as planned, unless regional officials order otherwise. Toulon, meanwhile, issued a statement saying their match against Stade Francais was unaffected, while Bordeaux contented themselves with revealing their matchday squad for the lunchtime game against Castres.
LNR president Paul Goze had previously suggested future games could be played behind closed doors due to the virus. In an interview with French broadcaster RTL, he said the saturated fixture list could not cope with the postponement of more than one round of matches.
The decision not to halt the weekend’s rugby matches is good news for league leaders Bordeaux, who finally appear to have cast off their perennial underachievers tag – and in some style, too.
The Begles have 57 points from 16 games heading into this weekend. They have the best attack and secondbest defence in the Top 14 after Lyon, four points behind in second.
They have scored 51 tries – and 28 more in six Challenge Cup outings. Their touchdown tally contributes 395 points to a total of 670 in 22 games in both competitions.
In defence they have conceded 30 touchdowns in the Top 14 and Europe (giving up a total 365 points). They have lost three times – all away – against Lyon, Brive and Toulouse, while their on-the-road scalps include Racing 92, La Rochelle, and, last weekend, Clermont.
The last time they were this exciting was in the early years of Raphael Ibanez, who was coach between 2012 and 2017 – when they were breathtaking and frustrating in equal measure, often in the same game, and never finished higher than seventh.
So, what’s changed? You could look at a squad that includes Semi Radradra, Seta Tamanivalu, Santiago Cordero and Ulupano Seuteni and assume that’s the answer. It’s not. Other than Cordero, they were all in place last season. And Bordeaux finished eighth.
It would be easy, too, to point to the rising French youth – Cyril Cazaux, Cameron Woki, Alexandre Roumat and Matthieu Jalibert. But they were at Bordeaux last season, too.
The difference is Christophe Urios, a coach renowned as an advocate of ferocious defence from his time at both Castres and Oyonnax – who, recently, said he was Shaun Edwardsing French rugby before Shaun Edwards.
Today, however, he’s the driving force behind the most cutting attacking threat in French rugby, a fact that says much about his ability to identify and weaponise a club’s strongest assets from day one.
Bordeaux face Urios’ old club, Castres and during the week he’s been busy telling anyone who’ll listen, that there’s nothing special about this game.
That’s not strictly accurate. In four seasons at Castres, defensive Urios three home defeats for Bordeaux. In his first season at Bordeaux, attack-minded Urios has to build-on the season so far with the double over his former club, whose defence is now managed by former long-term Bordeaux coach, and reported Wasps’ target, Joe Worsley.
What Bayonne – the worst attacking side in the French championship – wouldn’t give for even just a single dose of Bordeaux’s attack mojo.
They were the surprise early hit of the season, winning five of their first seven on their return to the top flight, to sit third in the table with 21 points. In nine Top 14 rounds since, they have picked up eight points, and came into the weekend in 11th place.
After their seventh round win over Montpellier on October 12, Yannick Bru’s side had scored 19 tries. In seven Top 14 outings between that match and the return fixture on February 15, they managed two more. Heading into the weekend, they had crossed their opponents’ tryline 25 times. Seven of those came in the games against Montpellier.
They added one try to their tally yesterday, bringing their total at home this season to 12 in a 20-10 win over a strangely flat Toulouse.
Pau, with Colin Slade on the bench for the first time since October, edged off the foot of the table and ended a run of seven consecutive defeats with a 19-15 win over a Montpellier side shorn of five players to France’s Six Nations squad.
Former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt was back at his old Clermont stomping ground this week, hoping to inject some get-up-and-go into a side that has become becalmed in mid-table, losing four of their last eight – including last week’s home game against Lyon.
It seems to have worked. Clermont avenged last week’s home defeat against Lyon, picking up their first Top 14 bonus point of the season with a 32-18 win at Agen.
Meanwhile, injury-ravaged Brive were looking for a marked improvement in performance after last week’s home loss to Agen. Lyon were the side looking to breach the crumbling ruins of breached fortress Amadee Domenech this weekend.
They failed. While no one was lookengineered ing, Brive had strengthened the walls. Winger Joris Jurand scored a firsthalf hat-trick, as the hosts raced into a 27-6 first-half lead and won 30-16.
The weekend had opened with, on paper at least, the game of the 17th round – as fifth-placed Racing 92 welcomed third-placed La Rochelle to La Defense Arena.
A single point separated the two sides in the table at the start of the weekend, which suggested a close encounter of the thrilling kind. But the on-pitch final score of 49-0 was an indication of the hosts’ dominance. Four tries secured the try-scoring bonus inside the opening period, and turned the screw with another three in the second. Truth be told, the zero points the Rochelais registered was the best they deserved.
It ends, assuming no prefecture intervention, this evening as undernew-ownership Toulon welcome Stade Francais, who dropped to the foot of the table after Pau’s win. While they are much improved from the side that started the season, it is hard to see them beating Patrice Collazo’s side on home soil.
“Begles have 57 points from 16 games, the best attack and second-best defence in the Top 14”