Sensational Top 8 start for Toulouse

Marine Menager scores for Lille (Photo:Eric Photos)

The French Top 8 has been making headlines long before its start this season thanks to the astonishing events at USA Perpignan. We covered itlast week, when it was announced that last year’s semi-finalists and multiple French champions would forfeit their opening fixture with Bobigny.

At the time there was a slight hope for the future – they were asking for a postponement of their next fixture against Blagnac St Orens (BSORF) to be postponed to give time for a solution to be found. Since then, however, Sebastian Bozzi (the coach “parachuted in” by the club’s new management team) is reported to have resigned, while the club itself in its press statements now openly talks about rebuilding from the lower tiers of the French leagues.

This is not too surprising as, even if a solution could be found, they now have no players. Julie Billes is reported to have joined Montpellier, Christelle Chobet and Wendy Divoux are off to Toulouse,  and Christelle Le Duff– along with at least seven other players - have apparently now moved 10km down the road to Villelongue, who currently play (but presumably for not much longer) in the third tier of the French leagues.

One interesting footnote to the dispute has been how the club management at USAP were comprehensively defeated on the public relations battlefield. They may have strong links with the local newspapers, but all of the social media was in the hands of the players and supporters – even the women’s team’s webpages. Bozzi even mentioned this in his resignation, complaining about the online abuse he has received. That the management handled the situation badly – indeed quite staggeringly ineptly - is hard to question, but any hope they had of winning the hearts and minds of the players and supporters was dead from start.

Meanwhile the seven remaining teams have a championship to play for, and they began on Sunday

It appears to be a tradition for French fixtures computer to be thrown newly promoted clubs into the deep end send with an away trip to the current champions. It’s a sink-or-swim approach which often results in dramatic near-drownings from which the new teams struggle to recover. But occasionally it brings about sensation.

Four years ago newly-promoted Lille travelled to (ironically) Perpignan, and won thus heralding their rise to the (near) top. And this year it was the turn of Toulouse.

Admittedly the club, which gained the backing of the men’s Top 14 team at the end of the 2013/14 season following which they swept to the second division title at their first attempt, were expected to be an interesting addition to the league. As we have mentioned in the past, over the summer break – and even before they were able to pick up the survivors of the USAP disaster – they have been assiduously picking up some big-name players including Canada’s Latoya Blackwood, Sweden’s Rebecca Kearney (an early departure from Perpignan), and Ireland’s Heather O’Brien and Paula Fitzpatrick. The new players have all paid to get to Toulouse, but the club have found them jobs or university places – a level of organisation rare in what has been until recently the very amateur world of French women’s rugby.

Even so, Montpellier – with five current French internationals in their starting line-up – began as clear favourities. The game was played at a new venue for Montpellier – Millau, about an hour and half’s drive inland from their home – as the result of an agreement between the clubs, but with the result that the game was, in effect, being played at a neutral venue.

Even so the game attracted a crowd of nearly 1,000 who were rewarded with a game which pitted the attacking speed of Toulouse backline against the fabled power of the Montpellier pack. But with the sun on their backs and a good hard ground, it was a battle that the visitors won – narrowly – taking a single try advantage at the break, and holding on in the second half to win 22-15.

Toulouse’s neighbours BSORF (Blagnac is, in effect, a suburb of Toulouse) also began with an away game, and also came away with a win. Their journey was up to Caen, and initially the game showed the effect of the players being away from the game for the past few months. BSORF’s Neissen opened the scoring after five minutes, with Caen not yet up to speed. A Delahougue penalty pulled the home team back into the game, briefly, but after that it was all one way. Auriol added another try after 29thminutes, and only their own errors prevented reaching the bonus point before half-time.

The second period continued the direction of the first, an impressive early Abadie penalty being added to with tries from Houlle and another from Auriol to round off a 25-3 win.

BSORF Coach Eric Carrière was recognised that improvements were needed, despite the result. "We had our problems, but put them right in the second half. But it's a shame that we had not killed the game in the first half. For early season, it's not too bad. "

Finally last year’s runners-up Lille romped to a 41-0 win over Rennes, the only black mark being a potentially serious back injury to Alice Dallery, which has resulted in a campaign of support across France and beyond.‪#‎putaindalice.