Our first championship game of the season is against Castres at home. Castres have always been a good side on paper, but for one reason or another they rarely make it into the semifinals. They are blessed with a sponsor, Pierre Fabre, who runs an eponymous pharmaceutical company that is big enough for him to write out large cheques to keep the club of this small town in the top half of the table.
This year they have brought in Laurent Seigne, formerly of Bourgoin and Brive, as coach. Seigne's methods are well-known in rugby circles for being a little old-fashioned. Gregor Townsend, the Scotland and British Lions first five-eighth, told me that, before one game at Brive, Seigne had made the forwards—boots and all—run over him and his fellow centre in the changing-room because he didn't consider them sufficiently enthusiastic about le combat. He also broke one player's nose with a head butt during a pre-match talk. So it will be no surprise if Castres are more physical this year than they have been in the past. Some of them may be scarred for life, but then no one said it would be a cakewalk.
We have two locks out injured, so although I am not really ready to be playing I sit on the bench with both knees heavily strapped, praying that, if I get on, they will hold up. As we are running through warm-up exercises, Alex Codling, the English lock, vomits. He had warned me that this might happen because he suffers from some sort of lung disease, but the other boys don't know this and most of them don't look pleased, particularly because he throws up in the middle of a grid in which we are about to start doing forward rolls. To top off the performance he then moves slightly to his right so someone else has to roll forward into what is left of his lunch. Most of us shuffle a couple of feet away from the ugly little pile while trying to stay focussed, and someone who hasn't seen what's happened arrives to take his place.
Castres have a powerful forward pack based around Kees Meeuws, the former All Black tighthead prop. We hold up all right up front, but start to get pinged by the referee for things that are more the result of inexperience than being overpowered. There are plenty of errors on both sides; it's still early in the season, summer really, and crushingly hot, so the ball is slippery with sweat and neither team manages much continuity. We seem to grind away without much reward, while they get easy penalties from scrums, which their fullback, the robotic Romain Teulet, kicks with dispiriting regularity. We manage a couple of three-pointers ourselves, and when the half-time whistle blows at 12–6 to them I have a feeling that we are in with a chance if we can just get some forward momentum.
The first quarter of an hour of the second half shows up my misplaced optimism for the wishful thinking it is. Their forwards are the ones who get the forward momentum going. Two quick tries, and with 25 minutes to go the game is more or less over at 24–6. I am sent on to take Alex Codling's place just after the second try, and after we kick a penalty I allow myself to think that perhaps the cavalry has arrived in the nick of time. (Reserves love believing this kind of crap.) But really I do absolutely nothing to stem the tide. I get sidestepped by their centre, and by the time my wobbly knees react and get me back to where I need to be to make the tackle he is already five yards past me. A few minutes later I am one of three people holding up Meeuws when he scores. In fact, my only satisfaction comes from landing a good punch on their replacement hooker after the little bastard bites me in a maul. With about ten minutes to go we score a consolation try. It makes the score look a little less ugly, but 34–16 is still a kick in the teeth, and a very bad start to the season.
At the after-match we see television replays showing that Meeuws didn't actually ground the ball, but by then it's too late: the use of the television referee is only for games that are televised live, and Canal+ rarely screens our games. So the post-mortem clutching at straws starts. Our new fly-half, former French international David Aucagne, although he had played well and kicked goals as required, had managed to butcher the easiest of chances after chipping through a kick that was missed by their cover defence, knocking the ball on when all he had to do was pick it up and fall over the line under the posts.
To try and cheer ourselves up, we play the game of recalculating the scores according to what might have been. Subtract Meeuws' try and the conversion from their total, add on Aucagne's 'try' and the imaginary conversion to ours, and abracadabra, it was a close-run thing at 27–23. From here it is only a short step to questioning a couple of refereeing decisions that gave them kickable penalties and— voila!—23–21 to us would have been the final score had the game been played in a truly just universe. This is the kind of wilful self-delusion that did for Madame Bovary.
From a completely objective viewpoint, 34–16 is probably a fair reflection of the gap between the two teams, and therefore not much of a drama. Castres look like a good side and should beat plenty of other teams. The problem is that we are playing in France, and when you play at home in France there is no room for objectivity. Here, rugby is more of an art than a science. Despite all the video analysis and number-crunching of the modern game, part of its charm is that it remains bloody-mindedly irrational. I have already mentioned the French idea of l'esprit de clocher—the credo of collective duty to the town, the team and the jersey. The peculiarity of the French version of 'pride in the jersey' is that it manifests itself much more strongly when you play at home. At home, the team is like the local militia, entrusted with the sacred duty of repelling the invaders and upholding the honour of the town—and everyone is watching. It doesn't matter that, intellectually, the players are capable of seeing the absurdity of playing differently at home and away. Everyone recognises that the pitch is the same size, the number of players the same for both sides, the ball the same shape, the referee (arguably, but we'll come back to that) neutral. You win home games. Away games you try to win, but at the back of your mind there is always the thought that if you lose, well, there's always next week, and next week is at home.
This highly developed sense of geographical awareness is linked to another very French idea, that of terroir, the notion that a product draws its identity from the soil in which it is produced and its character from the culture that surrounds it. I can't help but find this romantic sense of rootedness appealing. Rugby thrives in the hothouse environment of small French towns. Apart from the fully fledged cities of Paris and Toulouse, and to a lesser extent Montpellier and Montferrand, all the clubs in the Top 14 are based in towns that have populations of a 100,000 or less. The team's performance is a measure of the town's virility and skill, and gives its citizens an opportunity for civic pride when they compare their status with that of their big city cousins. Living in this kind of emotional climate, the players feel obliged to respond to expectations, because as their town's champions their honour is on the line more than anyone's.
In spite of the arrival of the professional era and the widespread use of mercenaries like me, to whom it had never previously occurred that you might play differently on one rugby ground as opposed to another, expectations remain the same. Yet even the French players are from somewhere else originally—most clubs have no more than a handful of genuine home-grown players—and it seems odd that, say, a Catalan playing for Biarritz or a Basque playing for Bourgoin should feel any greater surge of emotional power playing 'at home' than would an Australian, but it is still the case.
The home club does have a few very slight advantages. The home changing-room is normally slightly bigger and better equipped; the players know the ground better and can read swirling wind conditions; the home club always provides the match ball, and some clubs have different makes of ball that kickers find fly differently. Here in Montpellier (and I suspect everyone else is the same), the ball boys are told to swiftly gather balls that we kick into touch, so the opposition can't take quick throw-ins.
Most importantly there is the crowd, which likes to think of itself as the sixteenth man, capable of influencing a match with its voice. At Perpignan we used to let the other team run out first, leave them out there soaking up the whistles and the jeers for a minute or so, and then arrive to a roar that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. These days the teams have to come out of the tunnel at the same time, and the ground announcer is obliged to read out a little speech exhorting the fans to encourage their team in a spirit of fair play—for what that's worth. The opposition kicker, their fullback under a high ball, a referee or touch judge making a questionable decision (and generally speaking, any decision that goes against the home team is considered questionable)— everyone gets a raspberry.
And it is quite possible that the actors on the field, both players and officials, are influenced by this, consciously or not. More than once I have seen passes that were not forward whistled by referees, simply because the crowd called for it. But even this hardly accounts for the difference—usually about 20 points, depending on the exact circumstances— between a team's performance at home and away.
It had never used to make much difference to me where I played, whether there was a big crowd and, if there was, whether they were for me or against me. I suppose that, like anyone, my ego is puffed up by the presence of a lot of spectators. And even if the crowd were screaming insults, at least it meant they were paying attention. But this didn't affect the way I played. As with most New Zealanders, my motivation was internal, or at most revolved around what my teammates might think of me if I performed badly.
But I am conscious of having undergone a change in the way I feel during my time in France. Where I was once calm and phlegmatic (which the French see as typically Anglo-Saxon), I now get wound up just watching a game I think is important, and can blow up for the mildest of reasons. It is impossible to live in a vacuum, and the culture in which I operate has rubbed off on me. When I play a home game there is urgency to my preparation, but when playing away I am quite relaxed. I don't think this affects my performance, but I may be kidding myself. In any case, the stress of losing a game that you know you need to win is so great that, given Montpellier's away record, I would give myself an ulcer if I worried equally about every game. Over the last two seasons combined we have won only two championship games away from home.
Perhaps the best known example of the home-and-away mindset is the 1999 World Cup semifinal between France and New Zealand. As part of their preparation, the French team had visited New Zealand a few months before the competition, and been annihilated by 50 points. They had been particularly depressed by this result because they hadn't thought they had played badly: they had simply been beaten by a vastly superior team.
The semifinal was to be played at Twickenham, in front of a crowd of largely English spectators, with a smattering from New Zealand and France. The English spectators were supposedly neutral, although the French always assume that English-speakers invariably stick together: 'Vous êtes tous des Breteesh.' But the French arrived in the role of underdog, and an All Black victory seemed so inevitable that the Breteesh decided to cheer for their European neighbours. It would be simplistic to say that this alone led to the extraordinary upset that followed. The All Blacks, it seemed, had peaked too early in their preparation and appeared tactically naïve, while the French, after a dismal start, grew progressively stronger, helped by the serendipitous arrival, through injury, of certain key players originally omitted from selection. But the psychological impact that hearing 'Allez les Bleus!' ring around fortress Twickenham had on the French players was immense, and played an important role in their famous victory.
So this loss to Castres is discouraging for several reasons. Losing this heavily at home means we are clearly not competitive with the big boys, which is bad news because our next three games are all against teams who are qualified for Europe, and our next home game is against Toulouse, who, unfortunately for us, don't seem to suffer from the French version of travel sickness. Their supporters' chant on away trips is 'On vient, on gagne, et on s'en va,' an irritating Gallic version of 'Veni, vidi, vici'. It is quite possible that, after four rounds of the competition, we will resemble one of the more disappointing entrants in the Eurovision Song Contest: Montpellier, nul points.
This, in turn, will mark us out as a potentially winnable away game in the eyes of all the other teams, so they will approach the match in a different way than they might otherwise have done. Vultures. The first ten games of the Top 14 are to be played back-to-back this year, so if we start off on a losing streak we won't have the opportunity to gather our breath for some time. From a personal viewpoint, I had been hopeful that with a bit of adrenalin my knees would miraculously rise to the occasion, even though I was having trouble running in a straight line, but they remain resolutely uncooperative. I will need to stop playing for at least two weeks and hope they come right with physiotherapy. The good news is that most of the teams that we are counting on being between us and the bottom of the table have suffered the same fate we have. Toulon, who have just arrived from the second division, went down to Biarritz, while Pau and Bayonne lost to Montferrand and Toulouse respectively. No one scores a bonus point (achieved by scoring four tries, or being defeated by seven points or less). Narbonne, who I hoped would get off to an equally bad start, have somehow managed to beat Stade Français, and Brive have beaten Bourgoin. These last two games at least hold to home-and-away form: neither Narbonne nor Brive would have a hope of winning in Paris or Bourgoin. The fact that four teams have lost at home is ominous for the future of the championship. It looks as though we will quickly be divided into 'haves' and 'have-nots'.
From a mercenary point of view, winning and losing is a more complex equation than it may look at face value. If you are in the starting line-up, then obviously you want to win. Being in a winning team is always more fun, whether you are amateur or professional. There may also be win bonuses, though they are rare in French rugby and I believe rightly so: if you have got this far it is because you are a natural competitor and love playing the game, so while you will choose a club largely according to the size of the monthly cheque, when you are actually on the field you have a one-track mind, and promises of more cash are unnecessary.
Things get complicated when you remember that a team is made up from a squad of more than 30 players, of whom only 15 can be on the field at any one time. It's one thing if you are injured, or a young player with a future who needs to develop his skills in the second team and have occasional run-outs in less important games. But once you have arrived at a certain age, and you are not injured or being rested, the fact you are watching a game rather than playing it is hard to swallow.
Some players resolutely accept the coach's decision to put them on the bench or drop them completely, but I am not one of them, and I am sure I am not the only player to have sat in the stands watching someone else play in what I consider to be my jersey, and to hope that the team loses and the coach realises the error of his ways and reinstates me the following week.
Unfortunately, this is something of a luxury. If you are locked in a life-or-death relegation battle, as seems to be the case with Montpellier all the time, you know that losing a must-win game can lead to trouble. Relegation can lead to unemployment at worst, and at best a drop in your market value as a player and a subsequent scramble to find a new club. So the ideal solution is that the team wins but that the guy playing in my position has a nightmare of a game, bringing me back into the frame without the team having to suffer for my egotism. Like many players I am slightly superstitious, so I don't stoop to hoping for an expedient injury as I suspect that would be bad karma. And filling in for some one because they're injured feels a little like keeping the seat warm.
The Saturday after the Castres game, we travel away to Clermont-Ferrand. My knees rule me out of playing, so what I know of the game is from the subsequent video analysis and different reports. Montferrand are a strange club in that they always have a pile of money. Their budget, at €10.6 million, is second only to Toulouse, and is largely provided by the Michelin family, who run the world-famous tyre company out of this industrial city in the heart of the Massif Centrale. This means the team have a pleiad of French and international stars and are consistently thought of as potential French champions, and yet, despite participating at élite level since 1925 and making it to the final on seven separate occasions, they have never won a championship.
Last year they had a disastrous start to the season, which saw them at the bottom of the table halfway through, before they sacked their coach and brought in Olivier Saïsset, my old coach from Perpignan. They went on to win a remarkable series of games and just qualify for the European Cup. They are not a team that inspires fear, but they are full of potential and could run riot at any moment if you give them the sniff of a chance. The previous weekend they beat Pau at Pau quite comfortably so are on the crest of a wave, while we know our chances of a win are slim to nothing. Still, we have to improve on the outing against Castres, so we throw everything into it.
The game is a tit-for-tat affair, with each team having their moments. Our line-out causes them trouble, robbing them of munitions with which they might overrun us, and we give them quite a run for their money, even leading 15–17 at one point in the second half, before cracking defensively in the last half-hour. Coco Aucagne kicks a penalty just before the end, which brings us up to a respectable 29–23. So we end up with the bonus point for defence, which has everyone reasonably happy as we open our account to get us off the floor of the championship table.