FRENCH COLUMN
We’ll get Euro Cups played ok, says Toulouse chief Lacroix
Toulouse president Didier Lacroix is confident this year’s European rugby competitions will reach a trophy-lifting conclusion, despite the government-mandated postponement of the next two weekends. “We expected this decision...this competition must stop, at least temporarily,” he told RMC Sport yesterday afternoon, after the unsurprising news broke.
“There are four European Cup dates left. We will be agile enough to adapt. It remains to be seen what formula we will adopt … we will succeed in finishing the competition, unless everything is still closed in April-May, but that is another story...”
French clubs could use the twoweek hiatus to catch up with the raft of postponed Top 14 games. “We must move on as much as possible with the championship, but also to avoid duplicated dates between the championship and the Six Nations,” Lacroix said.
This weekend alone, Toulon v Bayonne and Racing 92 v La Rochelle have been called off because of Covid. A meeting of Top 14 presidents was due to take place this morning to decide a schedule for the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday’s decision came after a week of building momentum prompted by rising alarm over the spread of the Covid-19 in the UK in particular.
France has its own issues with the deadly virus. The vaccine rollout is speeding up after a painfully slow start, the country is under nightly curfew, bars and restaurants are closed until mid-February at the earliest, and while daily cases and deaths are lower than the UK, they are still too high for the government to relax strict measures.
While the French Ministry looks to have had the final word on this – and possibly the Six Nations, too, with a meeting scheduled for early next week – it was reacting to pressure from health officials, and clubs themselves.
Bayonne were the first club to go public. The postponement of Friday’s trip to Toulon means the Basque side have now missed three Top 14 games in a row following an outbreak of the UK-identified Covid-19 variant.
A statement on the club’s website last Sunday said: “Aviron Bayonnais wishes to reiterate the seriousness and prudence it has shown in the management and implementation of health protocols. Until the match against Leicester on December 19, only two cases at most over a sliding period of seven days had been detected in its workforce.”
It went on: “As it stands, the club will not play the two Challenge Cup matches scheduled for January 15 and 22 against Leicester and Zebre Rugby.”
Other Top 14 clubs also urged European rugby to adopt protocols to match those of the Top 14, which demanded a negative test three days ahead of a game.
Despite public calls for calm from Racing 92 president Jacky Lorenzetti – and assurances that no clubs were planning to withdraw from the competitions – European rugby officials had little choice but to take the threat seriously.
Last Sunday was a big day in French rugby. It was the day the Philippe Saint-Andre era at Montpellier kicked off, after Xavier Garbajosa was relieved of his head coach role following one bad result too many.
Montpellier face ninth-placed Brive today – whose own recent recovery came unstuck in an entertaining nine-try 51-21 loss at Stade Francais last weekend. It’s a mustwin for both sides.
Saint-Andre has already tasted his first defeat as head coach as his much-changed side went down 24-20 in a Covid-catchup game at Lyon on Tuesday. It was the club’s seventh defeat in ten Top 14 outings.
Montpellier owner Mohed Altrad, in an explosive interview with L’Equipe, described the head coach role as “too big” for Garbajosa, who was hired in 2019 from La Rochelle to make significant changes to a club that had stagnated.
System change takes time. Ask Ugo Mola, who came close to losing his job at Toulouse after they finished 12th in the Top 14 as he was working to clear out the old wood from the long Guy Noves era.
Ask Patrice Collazo, who endured a torrid first season at Toulon, when he joined the club straight after the crazy campaign of DominguezFord-Cockerill.
Mola was fortunate – a change of president and financial issues at Toulouse probably saved his skin, and allowed him the time to build a new dynasty.
Collazo, too, was lucky. Then-president Mourad Boudjellal said he was willing to go to the Pro D2 with Collazo, because he believed in the coach’s youth-dominated project.
Look at those two sides now – third and fifth in the Top 14, with Toulouse in particular playing some riveting rugby.
Garbajosa, who was charged with a similar squad-changing mission at Montpellier, did not enjoy such good fortune. He was attempting to develop a clearer pathway from the academy to the senior squad.
His problem was Montpellier couldn’t wait. They are struggling now. They finished eighth last season, only scraping into the expanded Champions Cup competition as the final Top 14 side. He left last Sunday with the club in 13th, the league’s survival play-off spot, as Altrad’s patience ran out.
In the only match to be played so far this weekend, Castres recovered from losing Filipo Nakosi to a red card for a dangerous tackle after less than two minutes to pick up a 39-23 bonus-point win over bottom of the table Agen.
“We will be agile enough to adapt ... we will succeed in finishing the competition” - Lacroix