Biarritz are the current French champions and one of the 'big three', along with Toulouse and Stade Français. The town of Biarritz is tiny—30,000 people—but it is part of the larger agglomeration of BAB (Bayonne, Anglet and Biarritz), which makes up the urban centre on the French side of the Basque country. Since 1998 Biarritz Olympique has been known as Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque—Biarritz Olympique Basque Country—which has caused some consternation in neighbouring Bayonne, where the feeling is that Biarritz are plastic Basques with a lot of money but not much soul. Towards the end of the season someone, probably a Bayonne supporter, steals the 'y' from the stadium sign, so it reads 'Biarritz Olympique Pa s Basque' (Biarritz Olympique not Basque).
The town is a former Viking settlement—the Scandinavians landed here in the ninth century and stayed to exploit the fisheries—and its name is said to be a corruption of the original Bjornihus (Bjorn's house) which became Biarnitz, and finally Biarritz. Not that this gives Bayonne anything to crow about as far as Basque names go: it used to be Bjorhamn, then Baionam, then ... well, you get the picture. Biarritz have taken spectacularly well to professional rugby, largely thanks to the massive sponsorship of Serge Kampf, who may be French rugby's biggest spender through his massive IT and consulting company, Cap Gemini. Serge Blanco, the brilliant French fullback of the 1980s, has also been very helpful. Although head of the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, the administrative body for French professional club rugby, he is more than just a cheer leader for Biarritz Olympique, leading to occasional accusations of conflict of interest.
The result has been that Biarritz, who won the French championship only twice in the last century (in 1935 and 1939), have won it twice in the last five years—in 2002 and 2005—and are odds-on to do it again this year. They were semifinalists in the Heineken Cup in 2004 and 2005, and this year they made it to the final before going down 19–23 to Munster.
So once again we know this won't be easy. Our next game is in Paris, so that won't be any better—we are nearly halfway through the season and we have only 15 points. Happily we are not alone—Pau and Toulon are just behind us on 13 and 12 respectively, Narbonne and Bayonne just ahead on 17. All five teams are at home this weekend taking on the big boys: Pau v. Paris, Toulon v. Perpignan, Bayonne v. Castres. Narbonne have the easiest time of it with a game against Agen. Depending on the outcome of the other games we could find ourself in a hole if we lose or out in front if we win.
We start by playing into the wind, and from the kick-off Biarritz dominate, using the wind to get into our territory and then looking to score quickly. Actually, it's a little too quickly: they seem to have their eye on the win and a bonus, but they rush and end up making uncharacteristic mistakes. Their knock-ons and kicks directly into touch mean we keep our head above water for a while. But only for a while. In the space of ten minutes their powerful little winger, Philippe Bidabé, scores two tries, Dimitri Yachvili converts one and pots a penalty as well, and it is 0–15, until Coco kicks a penalty for us.
A few minutes later, Mika gets yellow-carded for a high tackle on Biarritz's Argentinian centre, Federico Martin-Arramburu, but Yachvili misses the subsequent penalty and we hold them out, despite being a man down. At half-time it's 3–15, but they look as though they are cruising and will pick up speed in the second half to make sure they get their bonus. We have the wind but fail to make good use of it, and Yachvili makes it 3–18 with another penalty. This is almost exactly the same score that Perpignan led by before we stormed back to win, but I wouldn't be putting any money on that happening again.
Which goes to show what I know: with less than half an hour to go, our winger Lolo Arbo breaks and feeds our other winger, Seb Kuzbik, who barrels over. The try is converted: 10–18. Ten minutes later we kick another penalty, and at 13–18 everyone is thinking of the Perpignan game—can we do it again? With quarter of an hour to go, we have the momentum and Biarritz don't look much like champions. Ten minutes to go and Lolo is well set up by centre Alex Stoica in a two on one. It's now 18–18, with the kick to come. Coco pushes it wide but we still have plenty of time.
As the seconds tick down to the full-time siren, we are still in Biarritz's half. A scrum 40 metres out from their line will probably be the last play of the game. The referee blows for a penalty against us at the scrum. The Biarritz captain, Thomas Lievremont, grabs the ball, takes a quick tap penalty from next to where the ball was put in, and makes a few metres before being tackled by Mika Bert. This is exactly what he was hoping for in taking the penalty quickly: by panicking our defence into tackling him before he can make the requisite five metres (the opposing team has to be ten metres back from the mark where the offence was committed —should the penalty be taken quickly the opposition must allow the ball carrier to advance at least five metres) he gains another ten. The referee whistles for a new penalty near the halfway line, bringing it inside the range of his kicker. This time he gives the ball to Yachvili, as the siren sounds to finish the game.
It is a similar scenario to the Perpignan game, but the boot that will be kicking the ball has the wrong-coloured socks. Yachvili reacts well under pressure. He has played some of his best games for France when the heat was on, while he can look ordinary in less important games. This time he doesn't flinch: 18–21, and the Biarritz players are semi-apologetic as they shake hands, knowing they got away with a win from what was, by their standards, a very poor performance.
At the after-match function, a whisper goes around the Montpellier camp—more among officials and supporters than players—that a great injustice has been perpetrated. Strictly speaking, if Lievremont wanted to take a quick tap he should have taken it from behind his scrum, not from the middle where the ball was being put in. This may sound like nit-picking, but it's important because it would have given us an extra second to get back to an onside position, and we would have been less inclined to panic. So the referee, Christophe Berdos (one of two full-time professional French referees, along with Joël Jutge), should have taken Lievremont back to the mark, where he could play it quickly, or have waited until the scrum had properly broken up and played it on the original mark—that is, in the middle of where the scrum had been and where the offence occurred.
Without the extra ten metres, Yachvili would have been kicking for goal from about 60 metres—not impossible, but pretty unlikely. We would have had a morale-boosting draw and the two points that go with it, instead of a loss and only one bonus point.
Berdos was looking at the scrum and had his back to Lievremont, and it all happened very quickly, so I can understand the slip and I don't think there's any point in getting too steamed up about it. However, quite quickly there is a full-blown conspiracy theory going that we should have had the penalty from the scrum (and referees admit that they are often unsure about what happens in the scrum), that there was an incident just before the scrum where we should have had a penalty, and so on and so on. We wuz robbed.
The conspiracy theory gets juicy when you consider a couple of interesting facts. First, as already mentioned, Serge Blanco, president of the LNR, is a Biarritz man. Any pretence at neutrality was scotched when he was caught giving an energetic pep talk to the team at half-time in the European Cup semifinal against Stade Français in 2005. This was relayed to the television audience by a camera, of which Blanco didn't seem to be aware, in the corner of the changing-room.
Add a pinch of speculation: Berdos has never refereed the final of the French championship. The LNR have a good deal of influence over who referees the final of the French championship, and Berdos, a young man, is naturally ambitious for higher honours.
Finally, throw in a hint of conjecture: Berdos is said to have refereed a game between Toulouse and Biarritz eighteen months earlier that ended with a last-minute penalty for Toulouse, which meant Biarritz lost a game they would otherwise have won. (Actually, he didn't. Didier Mené refereed the game in question, but once the conspiracy juggernaut gets rolling facts get crushed under the wheels.)
Stir over the heat of a narrow home loss, and it's a rich, aromatic brew. However, of the other lowly ranked teams, only Narbonne won their game against Agen, which means we don't feel quite as bad as we might have otherwise.
Thierry Pérez sounds off in the press the next day, although he's clever enough to do so without adding in all the gossipy hearsay that swept across the after-match. I have the opportunity to talk to Nourault and him about the incident in Paris on the Monday after the game. The occasion is the annual Nuit du Rugby, a sophisticated bunfight put on by the LNR, Provale (the French union of professional rugby players) and Canal+ after a day of meetings between rugby's various groups. I am there with Lolo Arbo: we are Montpellier's two representatives on Provale.
I put it to Nourault and Pérez that they shouldn't be going public with their criticism: it can give rise to a kind of victim mentality, and legitimise the feeling players often have that the referee has made a mistake. If the club hierarchy starts doing it, you can quickly slide into a situation where players are thinking, 'That's not right,' rather than concentrating on whatever is coming next. Pérez and Nourault's argument is that if you allow bad decisions to occur without making some noise from time to time, referees may unconsciously go against you when a call is 50:50. And it is true that we are a small club and don't carry much weight; referees are more inclined to hear what internationals have to say, and this may not even be conscious.
The fact is, though, that referees have a tough job. Even with the advent of television replays, a decision about, say, whether a try should be awarded is not always obvious. And for a referee on the field, making a call in real-time, with vision often partially obscured, must be incredibly difficult. It's amazing they get it right as often as they do. In France, they do this in an environment that is almost always hostile: the slightest perceived error and the home crowd will give a referee hell. It is not unknown for a referee to be assaulted by irate spectators after a game.
A referee's job is not made any easier by the number of different interpretations open to him. Take a ruck situation where a player from the defending team has tackled the player with the ball, and is now on the wrong side of the ruck and slowing up the recycling for the team in possession. One of the attacking team arrives, and seeing the problem he rucks the man on the floor, and the ball is freed up. In a split second the referee has to make a number of judgments. Is the defending player making an effort to roll away? If not, he should be penalised. If he's lying all over the ball and the defending team have already been warned, a yellow card may even be justified.
On the other hand, is the attacking player simply trying to free up the ball? Or is he gratuitously jumping on his opponent, trying to hurt him? Again, depending how he sees the situation, the referee can let play continue, whistle for a penalty, or even reach for a yellow card.
Often the differences are quite subtle, and one referee will react in a completely different way to another. What is certain is that a referee's decisions have a big impact on the way a game is played. If a referee blows his whistle for the slightest misdemeanour, you may end up with a stopstart affair, which never goes beyond two phases before a penalty is awarded. But if he lets small misdemeanours go and the teams perceive a laissez-faire attitude they can exploit, an incident can quickly end up in a boil-over because one lot thinks the others are getting away with it, and decide to discourage them by taking matters into their own hands.
As if this weren't enough, both teams—coaches as well as players—are trying to put one over. From the minute a referee walks into a changing-room to check studs and discuss finer points of law with coach and captain, there are insincere smiles on all sides. Sometimes the chicanery starts even earlier, with press campaigns about how an opposing team cheats in certain situations, and how the referee will have to watch out for certain players, who habitually spend the afternoon offside.
A few years ago the recognition that scrums can be dangerous, and require specialist front-rowers to minimise the risk of serious injuries, led to a new law imposing simulated scrums if there are no front-row reserves left. This was well-intentioned, but open to abuse: if your team spent the afternoon in reverse in the scrum, you just needed a couple of props to go down and your problems were solved. You could bring on a back-row reserve in place of the 'injured' front-rowers, thus gaining an edge in mobility and ensuring you won your own ball in the scrum because there was no longer any competition allowed.
Predictably, this happened quite often. However, the referee had to apply the letter of the law, even if he suspected that teams were not acting in its spirit. And it was almost impossible to decide if someone was faking. Were a referee to tell a prop there was nothing wrong with him, and at the next scrum the player buckled and ended up with a serious spinal injury, the referee could be criminally liable. So this year the law has been changed. Now, if there are not enough specialists for the front row, scrums will still not be contested, but no replacement can be brought on in their place. Curiously, since the new law was put into practice the situation has not arisen.
A referee also has to literally watch where he steps. As he waits for a ball to come out of a ruck or maul he will often stand on the field's open side, on the advantage line between the defence and the attacking team. This means he can see what's happening in the battle for possession, judge the offside line, and be well-placed to get to the next phase. It is a logical position, but it can also be useful for the attacking team because the referee can be used as a screen, blocking the opposition's view of the ball-carrier as he runs into the defensive wall. If you run on an angle at the referee, the player who should be lining you up for the tackle will be partially unsighted as you come towards the contact area, and as the referee steps aside he can block you for a crucial split second, giving you an advantage.
In theory, it should be easy enough for the referee to stay well clear of the action, but if he momentarily checks the offside line, and is then confused by a number of dummy runners coming at him, or perhaps a scissors move—where the ball-carrier cuts with a support runner—he may not know quite where to put himself. And bear in mind that all this is happening very fast. If the ball or the ball-carrier touches him, the referee has to blow his whistle for a scrum to the team in possession, but if he interferes with the defence it's just bad luck. Hence, if a defender feels he is going to be at a disadvantage, he may be inclined to push the referee into the oncoming traffic, on the grounds that he is in the way, and the defender is simply trying to make his tackle. Not much fun for the ref.
Before getting to La Nuit du Rugby, Lolo and I have spent the afternoon with the other players' union delegates. I used to think of the union as a useful advocate in any run-ins with your club—for example, Daniel Herbert was represented by it during his legal battle—but in fact it is much more than that. Provale was the prime mover behind last year's convention collective, an agreement that guaranteed minimum wages for professional players: €2375 a month for players in the Top 14, with the minimum wage for second-division players fixed at half this rate, exactly the minimum wage for all workers in France; an eight-week break between competition in one season and the next (this doesn't include friendly games or training); six weeks' holiday a year; and at least one day off a week. It has also set up an agency to help retiring players get back into the working world through training and career orientation.
Provale has acquired a sufficiently important role in the French rugby landscape that the traditional clubs v. country wrangle is now a three-way Mexican stand-off—clubs v. country v. players' union. This complicates things, but it is good news for the players. At this meeting, for example, we talk about the possibility of playing games over the Christmas and New Year period, something that has been mooted by the clubs. Their argument is that the calendar is so full we can't lose weekends in the middle of the season without doubling up international games and club games on other weekends, or having to jam three games into ten days, playing Friday, Wednesday, then Sunday. But the players consider the Christmas break sacrosanct. Few live in the same town as their extended families, and it is the one time of the year where they can get together with their family and relax for a few days. Although we have a month's holiday in between seasons, this doesn't correspond with summer holidays for schools and most working families as we are back training by July 14. So, much to the disgust of the clubs, the Christmas break is voted non-negotiable by a large majority.
These kinds of decisions about the calendar may sound boring, but they have quite an impact on how the championship works. Every time an international game is played at the same time as a championship round, the big clubs, which have the highest concentration of international players, are disadvantaged, and the smaller clubs have more chance of pulling off an upset win.
Obviously, the smaller clubs like the idea of doubling up international games and club games (though they don't want to be seen promoting it) because it redresses the imbalance caused by differences in resources. The big clubs hate it because they feel they are being penalised for employing expensive international players. And the Fédération, representing the national side, wants to have the top players available for training and game preparation as much as possible. There is currently even more urgency in their demands because of France hosting the 2007 World Cup: a good performance at home will be a big lift for rugby.
Because the French system, like the English, is not centralised around a national body and side as it is in New Zealand, South Africa and Australia, there is always a certain amount of tension between club and country as the players are the subject of a tug-of-love, and 2007 looks like being particularly knotty. There hasn't yet been an instance of one of the big three clubs missing out on qualifying for the semifinals because they lost a game against one of the alsorans while their best players were on international duty, but if this happens screams of rage will echo round the rugby world, and steps will no doubt be taken.
At the players' meeting we also talk about a medical study taking place on the high number of games played in France, and whether they are dangerous for the long-term health of players. At what point can you be said to be playing too much rugby? Players regularly play more than 30 games in a season—internationals occasionally as many as 40—and with the ever-increasing intensity of the modern game this is worth thinking about: more games and less recovery may start to push players towards performance-enhancing drugs.
It is suggested that the union enforce a maximum number of matches for any one player over the course of a season, but this would be complicated to enforce: coming off the bench for ten minutes at the end of the game, for example, is obviously not as hard on the body as playing the full 80. And you could end up with the ludicrous situation of a player making the final with his team, only to discover that his quota of matches had run out and the union wouldn't allow him to play the most important game of his life.
Enforcing any kind of ruling is difficult: exceptions can always be made, and sometimes the player himself may want to play. At the start of this season, several clubs found that players who had been on tour with the French team were not allowed to play the first game of the championship under the rule laid down in the convention collective that requires eight weeks' break in competition from one season to the next. This was despite the fact they had legitimately played friendly games in the lead-up to the start of the season because they were non-official. And the players wanted to play—or at least said they did. (It is difficult to say no.)
Bourgoin followed the rules and didn't play their internationals and lost narrowly at Brive, while Biarritz, Toulouse, Perpignan and Narbonne all played men they weren't supposed to—arguing that they were obliged to because of injuries—and won. They were fined a few thousand euros, which for most of them amounted to being stoned with profiteroles. An exception was Narbonne, the poor cousin, who were proud to have Julien Candelon play for France but could ill-afford the resulting €10,000 fine. The players' union now hopes that any infringement of the convention will result in a sporting sanction—the loss of championship points—which will carry more weight.
The players' union also has the option of calling a strike. It has never come to that, but before the last game of the previous season there was muscle-flexing and the LNR backed down just a couple of hours before kick-off, when the union threatened a strike that could have been ruinous for everyone concerned: the last round of the season was being played simultaneously by all the clubs and was to be televised.
A strike would have had serious repercussions for the relationship between Canal+ and French rugby. In 1981 TF1, the private French terrestrial channel, was televising the final of the French Rugby League championship live when, after only four minutes, a massive brawl broke out and the referee called the game off, leaving an hour and a half of dead air to be filled. Legend has it that the sport was never again televised. This isn't true, but its reputation certainly suffered. Rugby has worked hard to build a positive media image, and to let down Canal+ would be to shoot itself in the foot. For the players, a strike remains the nuclear option—a kind of mutually assured media destruction. Strike action by professional sportsmen is not unknown, but seldom ends with a victory for the players.
For all the occasional disputes between the clubs, the players and the Fédération, the relationship is still a healthy one. Most of the key figures are former players themselves, and know how to settle their differences over a beer. I run into Serge Blanco, Franck Belot, the director of Provale and ex-captain of Toulouse, and Jacques Delmas, the coach of Biarritz, at about three in the morning in a Biarritz nightclub after our return game, and they are looking as though they get on all right.
For the Stade Français game in Paris I am still out with the ripped tendon, but I go up to watch. Stade Français have a fascinating past. In 1892, in the first-ever final of the French championship, they lost 3–4 to Racing, but the following year they won the championship, and they went on to win it eight times between 1893 and 1908. Then in 1927 they lost to Toulouse in the final, and the next 60 years were spent in the wilderness—until Max Guazzini took over the reins in 1992, amalgamating the by then third-division club with the nearby Club Athlétique des Sports Généraux (CASG) in 1995, and installing Bernard Laporte as head coach the same year.
In the next three seasons Stade Français won their division and gained entry to the next, and in 1998 they beat Perpignan in the final and were, once again, French champions, 90 years after their previous title. They won again in 2000, 2003 and 2004, and have twice made it to the final of the European Cup.
Bernard Laporte became the French coach in 1999, but retains close links to the club. He was followed as coach by George Coste, who was ousted during the season. The players then ran the show themselves for two months, and remarkably won the championship. Then came Australian John Connolly, who seemed to have problems adapting to the French mindset. Nick Mallett, the former South African coach, followed in 2003–2004 with more success, no doubt aided by an understanding of both the language and the national psyche, acquired when he played club rugby in France during the 1980s. Fabien Galthié, the former French captain, is the current coach.
The Parisians put out a side close to full strength, but have the luxury of leaving a few of their usual first-choice players on the bench. They shouldn't have too much trouble beating us, and their only real worry is scoring four tries to ensure they come away with the maximum five points. Within five minutes they have scored a converted try, and it looks like being a long, uncomfortable night for Montpellier. We hold our own for a while and even make a few holes in their defence— particularly from counterattacks—but we can't finish. After David Skrela has added a penalty, Jérôme Vallée cops a yellow card and Stade Français score again almost immediately. It is 0–17 and we've been playing only 25 minutes.
Montpellier were annihilated here last year 82–12, which was in some sense revenge for the 49–25 kicking we gave them when we played them at home. Let's hope we're not going down that road again. David Bortolussi kicks a penalty, so we go to the break with three points on the board.
Shortly after the restart they turn over possession to us in our half. We use it quickly on the short side, and Seb Logerot, our young utility back who is playing on the left wing, sets off on a darting run, turns his marker inside out and sprints all the way to the line. It is a peach of a try, and when Bortolussi converts it's 17–10. A couple of minutes later he kicks a penalty: 17–13.
The score against Perpignan was 17–3 at half-time before we turned it around. Surely that can't happen again? For a short while it looks, incredibly, as though it might, but then reality kicks in. Bubu gets a rather dubious yellow card, and in the ten minutes we are a man down Stade Français score twice, pocketing the bonus and putting the game out of reach.
With a little more than ten minutes to go, Jérôme boils over with frustration about another debatable call, and insults the referee to his face. Cue yellow card, which, because it is his second, becomes a red, and he is off for the rest of the game. Again Stade Français score twice, and wrap the game up 45–13. We spent just over 30 minutes of the game playing with 14 against 15, and during those 30 minutes they scored five of their six tries.