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Brive fans deliver their verdict on Stuart Olding
By Online Editors
Stuart Olding has well and truly won over the Brive fans, if their end of season awards are anything to go by.
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Olding was voted the ProD2 sides’ ‘Player of the Season’ by fans, after he helped them to win promotion to the Top14.
Stuart Olding a été élu meilleur joueur de la saison 2018/2019 avec Minitaux !
Il a reçu son trophée des mains de Xavier Ric, Directeur Général du CAB après la victoire contre Grenoble avec les supporters. #WEARECAB pic.twitter.com/zay44O9YC0— CABCLRUGBY (@CABCLRUGBY) June 4, 2019
In truth, the former Ireland international wasn’t long becoming a favourite at the club.
Olding’s dream first season in France did however suffer an unsatisfactory conclusion on the field. Brive were beaten in the Pro D2 championship final by the final kick of their match against Bayonne.
There were just 16 minutes remaining when Brive moved 19-15 clear, but they ultimately were unable to protect that advantage. With six minutes left Bayonne shortened the margin to a single point. Then came the decisive intervention, Bayonne’s Argentine Martin Bustos-Moyano despatching the crucial kick to dramatically seal a 21-19 win for the Atlantic coast club.
That punt – their seventh score off the tee in the match – was enough for them to be crowned champions and earn automatic promotion back to the Top 14, the top flight they were relegated from two years ago.
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INCROYABLE ! ??? Grâce à une pénalité à la dernière seconde Bayonne s'impose face à Brive (19-21), décroche sa montée en Top 14 et le titre de champion de Pro D2. pic.twitter.com/PthFDhbsz0
— RUGBYRAMA (@RugbyramaFR) May 26, 2019
Olding has been rebuilding his career in the French second tier following his sacking in April last year by the IRFU despite being found not guilty – along with Paddy Jackson – following a high profile rape trial in Belfast.
The toxic fall-out from the case, which ended on March 28 last year, forced Olding to take a gamble and move to the French second division to keep his career alive.
Whereas Jackson has lasted just the single season in France and will now swop Perpignan (the team that will be replaced in the Top 14 by Bayonne) this summer for London Irish, Stuart Olding quickly settled in Brive and agreed a contract extension as early as last October that will keep him at the club until 2020.
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Ultimately it is the entire NZR board who should be sacked. Foster wants to be the ABs coach, you can't blame him for that. NZR appointed him in what was a terrible process for actually finding the right candidate, more of a coronation based on the false assumption of "continuity" - it was clear from the BIL tour in 2017 which direction the ABs were heading, continuing that seemed crazy by they decided to do it anyway. They then reappointed him before he had faced a true test before the NH tour of 2021 which was a disaster. They could have sacked him then. They could have sacked him after the Ireland series where it was clear the ABs were well of the pace. They could have done it after the tests in SA which despite being 1-1 were not in the least bit convincing. Basically they have backed the guy every year, but now in the lead up to the world cup they have decided he's definitely not the right guy, yet he remains the coach.
Go to comments"taking the land they felt had been stolen from them during the colonial era" the land had been stolen, and the requisitions were entirely justified. I'm very sorry that Negri's family were hurt but this article is basically just propaganda for apartheid.
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