Heineken Champions Cup: Collaboration of French clubs getting results in Europe
Will Kelleher, Deputy Rugby Correspondent
Saturday May 14 2022, 12.01am, The Times
The rugby world has always worried about the day France got its act together — because when it did, it would not only take part, but take over.
Now with the country Six Nations grand-slam champions, All Blacks vanquishers, European Cup dominators and World Cup hosts next year, it feels as though we are there.
Of the eight semi-finalists across the Heineken Champions Cup and Challenge Cup, five are French with only Leinster, in the top competition, and Saracens and Wasps, in the second-tier one, breaking the Top 14 monopoly.
Racing 92 and La Rochelle play each other in the Champions Cup, Toulouse go to Leinster; and, in the Challenge Cup, Toulon host Saracens and Lyon welcome Wasps.
Between 2005 and 2020 there were never three French teams in the Champions Cup semi-finals — now it has happened two years in a row, as European rugby is being painted red, white and blue. Next year’s home World Cup has focused minds, with French rugby ending its club-v-country civil wars and collaborating like never before to make every element stronger.
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“It took time,” Yannick Nyanga, the former France flanker and now the Racing sporting director, says.
“There were so many battles. That was stupid. We’ve got the same interests, we all need a strong national team. It’s the window of the sport, and the light that comes into it.
“If we have a strong national team, a lot of kids will start playing rugby, which will improve the French national team and club sides.”
Regulations have helped. French clubs are allowed up to only 14 foreign players each, and need an average of 16 France-qualified players in Top 14 23-man match-day squads.
“That is the key reason why France is where it is,” Nyanga adds. “The vision Fabien Galthié [France’s head coach] has is key, but you need the players.”
French squads are now bursting with local talent, not just galacticos. There are still stars — such as Finn Russell at Racing — but a player like 19-year-old Nolann le Garrec, man of the match in the 41-22 quarter-final victory over Sale Sharks, can develop more quickly by playing regularly.
The scrum half demonstrates Racing’s long-term plans, as Nyanga, who joined the club from Toulouse in 2015 before retiring in 2018, explains. “We’re learning. We’re a young club,” he says, sitting at Racing’s swanky training ground in Plessis- Robinson, one of the southern suburbs of Paris.
“My era — with Dan Carter, Joe Rocokoko — we had our chance, but that was a different Racing. We had experienced players, a mix of French, Kiwi, Irish, and we’ve decided to change that.
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“During that era we were preparing another era, with a lot of young players formed by Racing, which can nourish the French team. It’s two stories in one. It’s more solid.
“It was the vision of our president [Jacky Lorenzetti] first, who built these facilities in 2012. These rules weren’t in place then. When they came, lucky us, as that was our vision already.
“We’re maybe three or four years ahead of Clermont or Toulon. Toulouse have always had this vision, but we started to think this way around 2010, and now we’re seeing the results of it.”
They are engaging different areas too. Unlike Stade Français — the city club in Paris — Racing are the team for the Hauts-de-Seine, the suburbs. The 92 in their name refers to the number of that department in Île-de-France. Racing want to represent as many of the immigrant-dominated Parisian banlieues as possible; they believe it makes them culturally stronger.
An example Nyanga gives of this is the connection between the prop Hassane Kolingar, a 24-year-old of Chadian descent who comes from the “very dangerous” Villiers-le-Bel area and started playing rugby after the police arrested his father and suggested he should take up the game, and the centre Henry Chavancy, the captain, who is from the posher part of Paris.
“They get on together and feel like brothers,” Nyanga says. “We need to cultivate this. It’s what will make French rugby richer, and will bring it a profile it didn’t have 10 to 15 years ago.
“In the suburbs of Paris it has been all about football and basketball, nothing about rugby. We’ve got ten players who come from projects in the banlieues. It gives us a weapon to succeed in 2023.”
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Nyanga, born in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, knows this diversity will strengthen his club and French rugby. But while that important work continues, Racing are desperate for more immediate glory. Having lost three Champions Cup finals since 2016, they are determined to ditch their bridesmaids tag.
“It’s key for Racing, as it’s the only title we’ve never won,” Nyanga says. “The thing is, you need some luck to win as well. And you can’t base your whole strategy on winning. We’re trying to build a culture.”
Having realised that, French rugby is setting itself up for more victories.
Topic: Collaboration of French clubs getting results in Europe (Read 436 times)
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