BILLIONAIRES, BERETS AND BOW-TIES

From half-time champagne to becoming champions of Europe, Parisians are a club that operate like no other

DONNACHA RYAN’S most ardent supporters would not claim him for the ranks of the glamorous.

But as a symbol of the modern Racing rugby player, the hardangled Tipperary man is a good fit.

He is a foreigner, he is well paid, but he is not a superstar. He is, rather, a doer, a player with the discipline and the hunger to make his team champions, the type of competitor who is consistent every day, not just on the glitzy occasions.

This fits with the thinking that helped make Racing the champions of France in 2016. That was the year they also reached their first European Cup final, losing to Saracens.

It also marks a significant departure for a club known as ‘Le Show Bizz’ in the 1980s, an outfit that in its early years prided itself on its upper-class roots — and a club that won its first domestic championship with four aristocrats in the side.

Racing were formed in 1882 along the model of Victorian sports clubs, initially catering to a number of pursuits and with the diversion and amusement of the ruling classes as its aim.

The club has ever since been aware of their long history, which has at its core winning the first-ever French league title, in 1892. Their blue and white striped jersey, the renowned ciel et blanc, is said to have been inspired by Cambridge University.

Two more championships followed within the decade, in 1900 and 1902. They were based in a rich suburb of Paris, but it would be decades later when their players revelled in the distinguished past of the team.

In the 1980s, they played with a determination to be glamorous, to live up to those rarefied beginnings. This included occasionally sporting bow-ties in matches (including the league final they won in 1990) to drinking champagne at half time.

They infuriated Brive in a league quarter-final by running out in dinner jackets before kick-off.

Their behaviour was designed, at least in part, to antagonise, as it played up to the stereotype of louche Parisians, more style than substance.

In this spirit, they wore berets in a match against Bayonne, to honour their opponents’ Basque heritage.

The man behind much of this was the French out half Franck Mesnel, famously flamboyant and who became, along with former Racing team-mates, one of the founders of Eden Park, the clothing range associated with a certain preppy rugby style.

For many years, though, the style could not mask the absence of substance. It wasn’t until Jacky Lorenzetti became club president in 2006 that Racing became relevant again — eventually.

They were in the second division of the French game at the time, but Lorenzetti, worth hundreds of millions of euro as a result of his real estate business, has spent a fortune on the club.

This manifested itself most obviously in the signing of Dan Carter after the last World Cup; he is reputed to be the first rugby player in the world to be paid more than €1 million a year.

He was, in practical terms, bought to replace Johnny Sexton, but with respect to the man who will wear the Leinster No10 jersey against Racing on Saturday, Carter brought global glamour to the Racing enterprise. But Lorenzetti wasn’t merely another French billionaire lavishing millions on a plaything. He appointed Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers as head coaches in 2013 — and brought Ronan O’Gara in as part of that transformation. He also built a new training ground, as well as the U Arena, the team’s new stadium that opened last December. ‘Now his expansive wine business, equity interests and rugby team successful co-habit in the same Haut-de-Seine complex,’ wrote O’Gara of the lavish Racing facilities in the Irish Examiner last month.

‘I spent most of my non-pitch hours on the first floor where the dressing rooms, gym and commercial team operates.

‘Overhead is the clubhouse and meeting rooms; one side is the rugby, the other is the equity and wine businesses.

‘It’s a complex where suits and tracksuits seem to go hand-in-hand and as a place of work, there was always a good vibe from seeing the man who built it all around the place so frequently.’

Lorenzetti’s support brought in players like Ryan, Carter, Pat Lambie and Joe Rokocoko, but the coaching nous required to knit expensive imports into a strong domestic base is enormous.

And it continues to work. If there was a taste of champagne rugby about their first-quarter destruction of Munster in the quarter-finals, their obduracy was in evidence throughout the second half.

It was there, too, in the assaults on the Munster lineout led by Ryan.

His start at the club was unsettled by injury, but since returning

For many years, the style could not mask the absence of substance

towards the end of the autumn he has been exceptional.

Ryan is now a leader in the side — even if the thought of seeing his rugged old friend in such an historically flamboyant environment tickled his old team-mate Sean Cronin when he thought about it this week.

‘It would be funny to see him sitting down with Dan Carter or Lorenzetti and these types of guys,’ chuckled Cronin.

They would doubtless get along well — both are men who understand they have jobs to do.

Ryan’s is to win on the field, Lorenzetti’s is to support Racing — but also to make money.

He is entirely unapologetic about this, revealed O’Gara.

‘Jacky Lorenzetti recognised that in a city like Paris, that sense of community would be impossible to tap into.

‘What he presented instead was the pledge of sporting theatre Parisians would be proud of, with a team and facilities to match.

‘He has never hidden the overriding fact that Racing 92 is a business, and that its incredible new home in Nanterre, the U Arena, is a business that will have to wash its face.’

This involves regular concerts being held there, and Lorenzetti refusing to apologise for any inconvenience this might cause.

Racing are led by a rich, hardheaded man, and they are coached by pragmatic men, too.

The expensive signings are incorporated into a system even more dependent on local talent doing their job. Teddy Thomas and Yannick Nyanga were the heroes against Munster, while players like Eddy Ben Arous and Wenceslas Lauret are integral, too.

Outside centre Henry Chavancy has been described by O’Gara as the most important player in his old side, a dutiful, disciplined performer who holds the team together on the field and unifies them off the pitch, too.

Lorenzetti’s Racing rebuild has retained some glamour, but this is a deadly serious project.

His club is no longer about the show. It’s all about business, on the field and off it.