The Top 14
The Top 14 competition in France had its third week of competition on the weekend.
You can see some of the finest players in the world watching the competition for 26 weeks plus finals, but it doesn’t help the France national team too much.Top 14 teams are allowed to have up to 16 foreign players in their permanent roster of 35 and there are over 200 foreigners in the competition, many of them in key positions.
Then they can bring in foreign “medical jokers” if there are injuries and there always are.
Philippe Saint-Andre – not a happy chappie
France national coach Philippe Saint-Andre, whosw team has won only eleven out of 29 of the matches since he took the helm, is not too happy about the situation especially with foreign flyhalves and tight-head props hogging club selections every week. Other positions are not too well-covered either.
He said:
Look, in last year’s European Cup final between Clermont and Toulon, there were only three French players available to me. Toulon had more English players than French!
Mind you, when he was coach at Tolulon he did the same thing.
Some of the top players are Aussies, and there are Aussie coaches in the Top 14 also.
Tim Lane has taken over the reins at Lyon, who ran away with the Pro D2 (second division) competition last season and were promoted into the Top 14.
George Smith – a handy signing for Lyon by Tim Lane
Lane has recruited a handy player by the name of George Smith for his squad. George played well when Lyon lost by just three points to Stade Français in Paris in Round 2 (with winger Digby Ioane playing for SF) but they had their first win of the season, at home, against Alfi Mafi and his Brive team mates on the weekend.
Another Aussie coach (well, we’ll call him an Ocker) Patricio Noriega is now in charge of Bayonne where Mark Chisholm is playing in the second row. They had a tough opening round against last year’s champions Toulon who had one of the best players in the Top 14 last year, Matt Giteau, playing flyhalf, plus Drew Mitchell and James O’Connor.
Matt Giteau – one of the best players in the Top 14 last year
Incidentally, last weekend JOC looked one of the best players on the ground when Toulon played Racing Metro.
It’s ironic that the working man’s team Bayonne survivied in the Top 14 and their preening neighbours across town, Biarritz, were relegated (along with Perpignan, another famous club). Karmichael Hunt used to play for Biarrirtz as did Dane Haylett-Petty—and Rod Davies does now.
Whereas Tim Lane’s Lyon outfit was automatically promoted to the Top 14 for 2014/15, the second side to be elevated was the winner of a semi-final and final contest amongst the teams that finished second through fifth in the second division. The winner was La Rochelle—who signed Alofa Alofa.
As fullback Alofa scored a try within a minute in the first match he played, and on the weekend he scored two tries in his second game to help La Rochelle earn their first win of the season—against Toulouse !!
In the meantime Clermont, the club I follow, is in a slump although they have won two out of three.
Brock James – had a bit of a shocker
This is the team that won 77 home games in a row in all kinds of rugby (not even a draw) until they were beaten in the Top 14 semi-final last May by Castres.
They won their first home game this year but, with Aussie flyhalf Brock James having a bit of a shocker, they lost their second home game against Montpellier last weekend, with Sitaleki Timani and Ben Mowen starting for the visitors.
Losing two out of three at home, even if interrupted by a summer, is a slump for Clermont—believe me.
And it was doubly galling to lose against Montpellier, who had never beaten them in the city before.
