French Rugby 2021/2022

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kpj tiger
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by kpj tiger »

RunTigerRun wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:02 pm
Scott1 wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:44 am
kpj tiger wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:30 am

Am I the only one who isn't sure how or why this is a red, its not high and he wraps his arms, the only infraction I can see is marginally late? :smt017
I'm questioning it too
I too was initially unsure. I believe it is down to reckless intent by jumping into the tackle late, and why the initial contact is with the top of the chest, there does appear to be some contact with the neck/chin (although granted the clips I’ve seen combined with my eyesight could cloud this somewhat).

So my thinking is whilst technique wasn’t the worst there has been, the reckless nature of jumping/diving into the tackle without ‘due care’ for the opposing player meant it was a red card.

All my opinion of course
Interesting, it was my understanding jumping into a tackle is only illegal for the player with the ball?
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by RunTigerRun »

kpj tiger wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:07 pm
RunTigerRun wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:02 pm
Scott1 wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:44 am

I'm questioning it too
I too was initially unsure. I believe it is down to reckless intent by jumping into the tackle late, and why the initial contact is with the top of the chest, there does appear to be some contact with the neck/chin (although granted the clips I’ve seen combined with my eyesight could cloud this somewhat).

So my thinking is whilst technique wasn’t the worst there has been, the reckless nature of jumping/diving into the tackle without ‘due care’ for the opposing player meant it was a red card.

All my opinion of course
Interesting, it was my understanding jumping into a tackle is only illegal for the player with the ball?
I believe jumping as an ‘attacker’ into a tackle is illegal, unless having to jump upwards to collect a pass - but I don’t know the laws comprehensively to say for sure.

Given player safety is a high priority for World Rugby these days and given the reckless nature of the dive into the player, I’d imagine that played a role in Poite’s decision (I believe it was Romain Poite who was the referee).
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

Top14 round 3 results:

Toulon 38 S Français 5 ( All is far from well at SF, and there may be a "petite révolution" in the making among the coaching team)
Biarritz 28 Racing 19 (not many saw that coming!)
Brive 30 Pau 13
Castres 23 Bordeaux 23
Lyon 47 Perpignan 3
Montpellier 15 Toulouse 17
Clermont 23 La Rochelle 22

1 Toulouse played 3/13 points
2 Lyon 3/10
3 Brive 3/10
4 Castres 3/10
5 Biarritz 3/9
6 Racing 3/8
7 Montpellier 3/7
8 Toulon 3/7
9 Bordeaux 3/7
10 Clermont 3/5
11 Pau 3/5
12 Perpignan 3/4
13 La Rochelle 3/2 (still looking for their first win!)
14 S Français 3/0

Round 4 next weekend:

Bordeaux v Brive
La Rochelle v Biarrtitz
Pau v Montpellier
S Français v Castres
Racing v Lyon
Perpignan v Toulon
Toulouse v Clermont
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by ads »

RunTigerRun wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:27 pm
kpj tiger wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:07 pm
RunTigerRun wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:02 pm

I too was initially unsure. I believe it is down to reckless intent by jumping into the tackle late, and why the initial contact is with the top of the chest, there does appear to be some contact with the neck/chin (although granted the clips I’ve seen combined with my eyesight could cloud this somewhat).

So my thinking is whilst technique wasn’t the worst there has been, the reckless nature of jumping/diving into the tackle without ‘due care’ for the opposing player meant it was a red card.

All my opinion of course
Interesting, it was my understanding jumping into a tackle is only illegal for the player with the ball?
I believe jumping as an ‘attacker’ into a tackle is illegal, unless having to jump upwards to collect a pass - but I don’t know the laws comprehensively to say for sure.

Given player safety is a high priority for World Rugby these days and given the reckless nature of the dive into the player, I’d imagine that played a role in Poite’s decision (I believe it was Romain Poite who was the referee).
I mean, he's not only late but he also take the player out in the air as well. Disgusting tackle.
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

Whichever way you look at this, either a dangerous late tackle or dangerously tackling a player without the ball, there’s only one decision the referee can make - Red card!! I believe the culprit is up before the beak this week, so we’ll soon know if the punishment fits the crime.
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Bunchy
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Bunchy »

Thanks for these updates - any view on whats going on at Stade?
Less is more....
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

Bunchy wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:31 pm Thanks for these updates - any view on whats going on at Stade?
SF head coach, Gonzalo Quesada has said, « crisis, what crisis », or words to that effect. Played 3, lost 3, points 0 and bottom of the Top 14 tells a slightly different story. Next weekend, they’ve a home match against Castres and if they don’t win that then the guillotine will be sharpened and heads may begin to roll!
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by kpj tiger »

Robespierre wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:11 pm
Bunchy wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:31 pm Thanks for these updates - any view on whats going on at Stade?
SF head coach, Gonzalo Quesada has said, « crisis, what crisis », or words to that effect. Played 3, lost 3, points 0 and bottom of the Top 14 tells a slightly different story. Next weekend, they’ve a home match against Castres and if they don’t win that then the guillotine will be sharpened and heads may begin to roll!
What's wrong at SF in your opinion, lack of investment in the squad or poor coaching?
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

kpj tiger wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:00 pm
Robespierre wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:11 pm
Bunchy wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 2:31 pm Thanks for these updates - any view on whats going on at Stade?
SF head coach, Gonzalo Quesada has said, « crisis, what crisis », or words to that effect. Played 3, lost 3, points 0 and bottom of the Top 14 tells a slightly different story. Next weekend, they’ve a home match against Castres and if they don’t win that then the guillotine will be sharpened and heads may begin to roll!
What's wrong at SF in your opinion, lack of investment in the squad or poor coaching?
Don't really know, kpj, although they've lost some class players, like Gaël Fickou to Racing, Jonathan Dante to La Rochelle, Pablo Matera to Crusaders NZ, and as far as I know there've been no class replacements. Gonzalo Quesada was coach with Jaguares when they surprisingly got to the Super Rugby final a season or so ago but he's yet to prove himself in the Top14.
If SF don't get back on the rails soon, then Quesada may be axed. We'll see!
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Robespierre
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

Robespierre wrote: Fri Sep 10, 2021 11:27 am Agen, who last season were relegated from the Top14 to ProD2 having lost every game, are finding life equally tough in ProD2. So far this season they've played three and lost three.
How the once mighty are fallen! Among former great players for Agen are Philippe Sella, Abdelatif Bennazzi, Christian Califano, Pierre Berbizier, Jean-Jacques Crenca.
They lost a major sponsor last season ahd had to tighten their belts and they're going to have to find a way to get a few wins over the next few months or they may well find themselves relegated again.
I posted the above a few weeks back, and today the Telegraph have an article on Agen's demise:


Winless French rugby club on verge of unwanted sporting immortality
By the time of their next game, Agen, Philippe Sella's club, will not have won a league match in 581 days, without a home victory in 721

DANIEL SCHOFIELD
DEPUTY RUGBY UNION CORRESPONDENT
23 September 2021 • 7:00am
Daniel Schofield

It was a long time coming, but all bad things come to an end. The streak is over. Last Saturday, Worcester Warriors finally won a Premiership match.

By beating London Irish 36-24 at Sixways, Worcester ended a run of 18 straight league defeats, a sequence stretching back to the corresponding fixture last November. Amateurs. With the Premiership ringfenced now and for the foreseeable future, Worcester had the opportunity to do something incredible and set a losing run to last for the ages, but they threw it all away. And for what? To finish 10th or 11th when history was within their grasp? Pathetic.

If you want to see how it is really done then you should look over the Channel to Agen, the losers’ losers. According to some stats meticulously researched by (and shamelessly stolen from) my Francophile colleague, Charles Richardson, Agen's wait for the saccharine taste of a league victory will have stretched to 583 days by the time they play Mont de Marsan in ProD2, French rugby’s second tier, on Saturday. For context, when they won won 30-16 away to Brive on February 22 2020, Covid-19 was firmly lodged in the foreign news section of the papers. Apparently there were fears that it could hit Primark and Asos’ supply chains. Thankfully nothing more came to pass...

But there’s more. Their wait for a home league victory goes back even farther – 700 plus days – to October 19 2019 when Stade Francais were thumped 27-19, at which point most people would have thought the Wuhan lab was a hip-hop tribute group. It is quite remarkable to trace their form over this near two-year period. They start the Top 14 season strongly. At the start of the 2019-20 season, they beat Brive and moneybags Montpellier, draw away at Racing 92 and claim a number of bonus points. At which point, not only do the wheels start to come off, but the whole vehicle goes through the central reservation and bursts into flames.

Yet, despite this downward spiral, Agen were saved from relegation, with the pandemic curtailing the 2019-20 campaign. Once sport resumed in France, their trajectory continued in a vertical descent. The final standings read: played 26, lost 26, scored 315, conceded 1101. The only blot on their copybook was two losing bonus points, which prevented from gaining a big fat zero in the points column, but still set all manner of ignominious Top 14 records (although it was still one point more than London Welsh’s 2014-15 Premiership campaign).

Relegation can often allow clubs to press the regroup and reset. Reconstruction work at their Stade Armandie began over the summer which provided a decent enough metaphor. However, their new campaign began in the exact same manner the last as finished. Four games, four defeats, including to newly promoted Bourg-en-Bresse. To make matters worse, Saturday’s opponents Mont de Marsan are top of the table.

Located in France’s south-west rugby heartland, Agen have a proud history. They have won the French league eight times and reached the final as recently as 2002. French icon Philippe Sella represented them for 13 years.


So, what went wrong? Well this being a French team, it has involved a meddling president and multiple bouts of infighting. Sometimes quite literally. Following their only “win” of last season – a 28-0 walkover in the Challenge Cup against Treviso who forfeited the game due to a Covid-19 outbreak – team-mates Paul Ngauamo and Hugo Verdu got into a fight at the airport, which should serve as Siri’s new definition for ‘the epitome of Frenchness’.

President Jean-Francois Fonteneau got rid of head coaches Christophe Laussucq and Remy Vaquin last November to address the “spiral of failure”. This week, he has issued a vote of confidence to current head coach Regis Sonnes.

Rather than try to pull out of their tailspin, they should just enjoy the freefall. Their winless run stands at 31 matches, just a game away from tying Derby County’s 32-game winless streak in the 2007-08 Premier League season. And then there’s the Holy Grail of Leicestershire’s 933-day, 38-match wait for a win in the County Championship. These are the milestones that make a club globally famous.

Worcester bottled their chance at immortality, Agen can still seize theirs.
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ourla
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by ourla »

That made me chuckle... good luck to Agen in their quest.
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

Robespierre wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 9:54 am
kpj tiger wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 8:57 am Anybody know why Facundo Isa is playing for Toulon and not Argentina? :smt017
He sustained a knee ligament injury with the Argentina team and came back to France to recuperate. It was thought he may be absent for 7/8 months but he's made a rather rapid recovery and starts at 7 for Toulon in this evening's round 3 Top14 match at home to Stade Français.

Here's the link:

https://www.lequipe.fr/Rugby/Actualites ... ne/1278801
He broke a finger in the match against Stade Français and will be absent for 6 weeks.
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Robespierre
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

RunTigerRun wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:02 pm
Scott1 wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:44 am
kpj tiger wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:30 am

Am I the only one who isn't sure how or why this is a red, its not high and he wraps his arms, the only infraction I can see is marginally late? :smt017
I'm questioning it too
I too was initially unsure. I believe it is down to reckless intent by jumping into the tackle late, and why the initial contact is with the top of the chest, there does appear to be some contact with the neck/chin (although granted the clips I’ve seen combined with my eyesight could cloud this somewhat).

So my thinking is whilst technique wasn’t the worst there has been, the reckless nature of jumping/diving into the tackle without ‘due care’ for the opposing player meant it was a red card.

All my opinion of course
He's up before the beak on Wednesday 29th.
He deserves a lengthy ban by he may well get a slapped wrist and told to be a good boy in the future :smt018 !
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by Robespierre »

Top14 round 14 results:

Bordeaux 29 Brive10
Pau 23 Montpellier 22 (a touchline conversion by Zach Henry was crucial - but he missed an easier one!)
S Français 34 Castres 10 (despite a red card in the opening minutes, SF's season is underway, although they're still 14th in the table)
La Rochelle 59 Biarritz 17 (first win of the season for La Rochelle)
Racing 24 Lyon 20
Perpignan 12 Toulon 9
Toulouse 27 Clermont 15 (4 wins out of 4 for Toulouse against good teams - La Rochelle, Toulon, Montpellier and Clermont)

1 Toulouse 4/17
2 Racing 4/12
3 Lyon 4/11
4 Bordeaux 4/11
5 Brive 4/10
6 Castres 4/10
7 Pau 4/9
8 Perpignan 4/8
9 Montpellier 4/8
10 Toulon 4/8
11 Biarritz 4/8
12 La Rochelle 4/7
13 Clermont 4/5
14 S Français 4/4

Next weekend's fixtures:

Brive v SF
Lyon v Bordeaux
Montpellier v La Rochelle
Perpignan v Pau
Biarritz v Toulouse
Castres v Toulon
Clermont v Racing
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Re: French Rugby 2021/2022

Post by tigerburnie »

Toulon seem to be at the wrong end of the table and some beatings, wheels coming off the juggernaut? or is the owner getting bored?
"If you want entertainment, go to the theatre," says Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill. "Rugby players play the game to win.15/1/21.
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