André Lestorte is no longer president of Pau, and I don't hold any grudges against the team itself, but by the time our return game against them comes around it looks as if the dreaded thirteenth place is reserved for either us or them, and I'd sooner it was them. There are still just a handful of points separating us—they are on 21, while we are on 25. It is now mid March, just ten weeks before the end of the season, and a loss would put us in a very uncomfortable position.
We dominate proceedings and score a couple of good tries, including a peach of an effort from our talented fullback, David Bortolussi, who runs in a chip-and-chase from inside our own half. Again, Beauxis is kicking goals from everywhere and he keeps them in touch, so we go to the break leading 20–12.
It is difficult not to think that the whole thing is running according to script and with luck we'll manage a bonus point for four tries. But all the hard work of the first spell is undone within ten minutes of the start of the second. A converted try and a penalty and we are staring the unthinkable in the face—Pau are beating us 22–20 at home with just half an hour to go. Knowing this game is do-or-die for both teams, busloads of their supporters have turned up, and the Montpellier crowd, never particularly vocal, is being swamped by chants of 'Sec-tion!' Clap-clap-clap. 'Sec-tion!' and Pau's green and white flags are waving furiously. We reserves—I am on the bench again—have been buggering about, thinking we don't have any worries, but suddenly everyone is tense, gnawing at fingernails, tut-tutting at the referee and swearing softly to each other. With just under half an hour to go, I am relieved to get on the field. Out in the middle you have less time to think about the consequences; you just slip into doing what you know.
Pau aren't creating anything, they are just living off our mistakes, so we tighten up the game and go back to rolling mauls, forcing a penalty, which Coco kicks, and then we drive over in the corner from a line-out, and from the restart we head up field again. Pau are panicking now, giving away silly penalties as they feel the game sliding away from them, and Christophe Laussucq, their halfback, cracks and punches our prop, Clément Baiocco. The referee doesn't see it but the touch judge does, and Coco puts the penalty over again: 31–22.
Now that their team is losing, Pau's backs, realising they have to take chances, start to operate with more menace. They run back a sloppy missed touch-finder from inside their half, and a well-timed grubber kick is gathered by Cassin, who scores. Beauxis converts. 31–29. Christ. Twenty minutes to go. At least the crowd are getting their money's worth. Play see-saws back and forth, each side kicking long and hoping the other will make a mistake.
Ten minutes to go. Seb Kuzbik, our big powerful winger, breaks down the left flank and scores, and Coco converts. That's the bonus point and surely the game. As Kuzbik was sliding in to touch down, one of Pau's defenders had come across and spitefully dropped his knees into his back, so the referee awards us a penalty on the halfway line. Once Coco has converted the try he slots this one as well: 41–29.
Pau are not finished yet, and after we take the kick-off Bubu sets himself up for a kick that will relieve the pressure. Patrick Tabacco, Pau's tall back-rower, leaps to charge it down. The ball bounces kindly into his arms and he is away, beating our cover defence to score his second try. Beauxis converts, and with the score at 41–36 we spend a nervous last couple of minutes down in their end before the final whistle releases us from purgatory. Pau come away with a bonus point but so do we, and with the four points for a win that should be enough.
A week later, I am again in the starting line-up for the return match against Brive. In fact, I'm starting to feel pretty good, and am thinking more and more seriously about playing another season. The day before the game I am interviewed in the local paper and asked if I am retiring. I leave the door ajar, replying that I am 95 percent certain this will be my last year. When you're enjoying playing rugby, winning games, having fun with your mates and the money is piling up nicely in the bank, you can't think of a better job. What's so good about the real world anyway?
Things start to go wrong pretty much as soon as these thoughts form. That night the neighbours decide to have a party, and one of the guests accompanies the Gipsy Kings on the bongos until three in the morning. It doesn't get much worse. I am a bit grumpy the next day, but after all it's the best job in the world, so let's get on with it. Then it does get worse: I hear a rumour that Samuel Chinarro, a Brive lock, is in contact with Montpellier about next year. As I am the only lock without a contract for next year, it's my spot he would be taking. Still, there's probably nothing in it. Idle chitchat. Happens all the time. Agents trying to talk up the value of their player, that sort of thing. As I say, let's get on with it.
We start well, and I get the impression Brive are not very interested—they're in ninth position on 38 points, well out of the danger zone. Pau are still thirteenth on 24, while we're eleventh on 30. Agen, in eighth place, are on 48, ten points ahead of Brive, and then it's another four or five points to the European clubs—realistically, an unbridgeable gap. So Brive haven't much to play for. After four minutes it's 3–0 to us. Here we go...
Then we make a couple of mistakes and they kick a penalty to touch 15 metres out. No danger there though: we defend well, particularly at home. Famous last words: they get a clean take and the most ordinary-looking maul spins off—helped by my incompetence as I try to pull them apart but succeed only in splintering our defence—and Chinarro, the would-be Montpellier lock, plunges into the in-goal to score.
Sweet mercy, what have I done to deserve this? After ten minutes it's 7–3 to them. We really need to win this game because our last few matches are against heavyweights, apart from Toulon whom we play at home, and if we're not careful we will be scratching around in the basement again, despite having worked so hard to get out. We bounce back quickly with a penalty, and then Murphy Taele crashes it up in midfield after a scrum. I come in to clean out, and collect his boot in my face as he's wiggling around on the ground with his feet in the air, like a dying insect.
Bubu picks up the ball and darts 20 metres through their non-existent defence to touch down, but I don't see any of this because I am looking at the blood on my hand that seems to be coming out of my eye. Surely not. This is ridiculous. Oh well, at least we're winning now. I go off to have my injury looked at. It will need a stitch but isn't as bad as it might have been.
I get back on just after Coco kicks another penalty and we are starting to look reasonably comfortable. I find the rhythm easy, and after the initial panic I relax and start to enjoy it. Both teams are trying to play an open game and we are often a little too ambitious, attempting miracle passes that don't connect. Brive kick another two penalties, Coco drops a goal, and at half-time it's 19–13. We dominate without managing to score, and with 30 minutes to go I am hauled off. Shortly afterwards, Brive's young lock, Denys Drozdz, gets a yellow card and we strike almost immediately: a try for Seb Kuzbik. That wraps it up, 24–13, with neither side able to score in a strangely flat last 25 minutes.
The return match against Clermont-Ferrand, scheduled for the end of January, had to be put off because of flooding, and we finally play it at the end of March. The delay is a blessing: by this time the atmosphere in the team has changed considerably for the better. We have managed to string together a few wins, and a conscious effort has been made to bind the group together. A system of fines has been instituted for people who arrive late at training or team meetings, have their photograph in the paper, or allow their cellphone to ring in team meetings. If a ball is dropped during a team run, everyone does ten press-ups. And after home games the team gets together in the changing-room, has a few beers, and nominates contenders for the 'wig of the week' award. Anyone guilty of a cock-up has to wear a long blond wig at the after-match function and to and from training sessions during the week. If this seems contrived, it is nonetheless effective, and gives everyone the opportunity to have a laugh and let off some steam while atoning for various sins, real or imagined.
I come off the bench at half-time, when the score is 15–10 to us. Our backs played well and after only 15 minutes we were 15–0 up, but just before half-time the Springbok winger Breyton Paulse got a bit of room on the short side and sprinted 60 metres for a try that could destabilise everything we have painstakingly put together. Shortly after the break, Laurent Arbo scores from broken play and all the steam goes out of Montferrand. Having hoped for a semifinal berth, they are now looking to hang on to sixth place to assure themselves of qualifying for the European Cup next year, so they have plenty to play for, but they seem to go to pieces.
Aurélien Rougerie, the French winger and their usual captain, is out injured so that may have something to do with it, but given their talent and experience—Argentinian, Italian and French internationals sprinkled through the team, along with former All Black flanker Sam Broomhall, Welsh Lion Stephen Jones at fly-half, Paulse on the wing and so on—it is little short of a disgrace. Admittedly, Canadian Jamie Cudmore gets an ill-deserved red card with 15 minutes to go, but by the end the only people who seem to be trying are Tony Marsh, the Kiwi who played in the French midfield for a few years up to 2003, and Jones, who is leaving at the end of the season to go back to Llanelli. That may be a little unfair on some of them—God knows I've slogged my guts out in losing teams often enough—but the end result is a stunning 42–13 landslide. We score five tries, the fourth one when we atomise their scrum (a man down without Cudmore) five metres out from the line on their put-in, thus collecting a bonus point.
I have a word with Tony Marsh afterwards, and ask him what is going on. He tells me it's the same story they've had at Montferrand for the last six years. Over that time they've changed the coach four times. The team never has time to settle into a pattern, and I suspect their policy of buying stars doesn't help, because all stars tend to think of themselves as individuals, and naturally want to keep the habits that have allowed them to become successful. The French have a culinary image for the idea that different elements may come together to form a successful whole: Est-ce que la mayonnaise va prendre? Montferrand's experience shows that even the best quality ingredients don't help if the chef doesn't know how to make mayonnaise, or doesn't have the time. I also talk to Jamie Cudmore, who tells me that life for Montferrand is, in fact, too easy. Everything is on a plate, nothing has to be fought for—there are no contact sessions with the Killer Bs, for example—and it is easy to get soft in such a cosy environment.