Galthie’s surprise UFO lands his chance
France coach Fabien Galthie revealed his squad selection for Les Bleus’ first training camp ahead of the 2022 Six Nations on Tuesday. It listed 42 players, as per the agreement between the FFR and the LNR.
Most of the names on this first list are as expected – 22 of the 23 that beat New Zealand are there. The one who isn’t, Matthieu Jalibert, has a minor thigh injury. He’s expected to be fit in time for the tournament but not for the opening week’s training at Aubagne, home of the French Foreign Legion in the south of France, not far from Marseille.
Stats guru Russ Petty pointed out on Twitter this week that 67 per cent of those in the first France squad of 2022 were also on last year’s Six Nations lists. But, of those 42, seven players are uncapped, four of those have never been called up before, and one was a complete left-field surprise. A name that many outside France may not be familiar with.
Early on this year, Galthie namechecked ten uncapped players that he and his staff were keeping an eye on. He spoke of Racing’s back row Yoan Tanga, La Rochelle’s dual-role winger-centre Jules Favre and Lyon’s monstrously big fly-half Leo Berdeu in that earlier despatch – and they duly made this training camp squad. We knew about them. We expected to see their names.
At the time, he insisted there were no “UFOs” – his favoured term for unexpected call-ups – on his radar. Melvyn Jaminet had been a UFO before he went to Australia without a minute of Top 14 gametime under his belt. Anthony Bouthier another who came out of nowhere, or Vannes via Montpellier, to make Galthie’s first-ever Six Nations starting line-up. Winger Gabin Villiere was a third – and you could possibly make a partial case for Toulouse lock Thibault Flament, though the truth is he was being watched ever since he moved to France from Wasps. He said nothing about Clermont 20-year-old loosehead Daniel Bibi-Biziwu, who must surely meet his definition of a UFO, after being named among the 42.
The expectation was that La Rochelle’s Reda Wardi or Bordeaux’s Thierry Paiva were most likely to fill the squad’s third leftside front row slot, behind Cyril Baille and Jean-Baptiste Gros.
Last season, his first with the Clermont senior squad, Bibi-Biziwu played 12 Top 14 games and two Champions Cup matches – all as a replacement, plus three U20s Six Nations games, starting twice.
This season, his four outings have been in the starting line-up, where he’s played an average of about 50 minutes per game – standard fare for a starting prop. But there’s no hiding the fact he’s got his squad call up on the back of 195 minutes of rugby this season, and 407 last season. Even Bertrand Rioux, director of the Clermont academy, was taken aback to see his protege’s name on Galthie’s list: “It was a big surprise,” he admitted this week. “We know he has the potential but I didn’t think it was going to happen so quickly.”
And his ability is evident. He’s as solid as a player gets in the scrum – Rioux has described him as “a monster” – and he’s far from a slouch in the loose, having played at centre and in the back row through the age grades before moving right up to grind his nose in the coalface.
Last season, Clermont stuck pretty much to keeping him as an impact player, making the most of his pace, his mobility, his sheer love of breakdown work, as they polished his pure potential. He’s a lot like one of his new loosehead international colleagues, Toulon’s undisputed number one, Gros.
None of this is to suggest that you should expect to see Bibi-Biziwu’s name when the matchday 23 is announced – though Galthie sets great store in what happens at the training camps, so it’s not entirely out of the question.
Though it’s more likely he’s been named so that the France coaches get a closer look at him, and that he gets to experience full high-intensity training sessions with Les Bleus, the fact he’s been named as a squad member, rather than attending camps as a “training partner” speaks buckets about the sheer potential he possesses and the regard in which he is held.
He has a shot – though it’s a long one – of making a senior international bow, with Baille, 28, and Gros, 22, way ahead in the international pecking order.
But, while it’s too early to say for sure that Clermont’s young gun is the future of French looseheads, there’s no doubt that Clermont believe he’s the real deal. Forget Baille and Gros at international level – being in the loosehead mix with Peni Ravai, Etienne Falgoux and Giorgi Beria at his club at 20 is no small achievement.
There’s no wonder that Clermont are keen to keep their rising star – the very model of a modern prop. They tied him to a new three-season deal last year – it would have been longer but he’s still an academy player and three years is the limit. That contract runs out in 2024.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, they’ll be keen to keep him in the Auvergne much longer, no matter what happens with France. He is the poster boy of a new Clermont generation.
“There is no doubt Clermont believe 20-year-old prop Bibi-Biziwu is the real deal”