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Fit-again Bastareaud poised for first match since December injury

By Sam Smith
(Photo by Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP via Getty Images)

Ex-France midfielder Mathieu Bastareaud is expected to play his first match in eight months this Friday after he suffered a season-ending knee injury playing for Lyon in the Top 14 last December. The soon-to-be 33-year-old was unveiled as a Lyon signing in April 2020 on a two-year deal but his experimental positioning at No8 had a cruel outcome with last winter’s serious injury.  

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Bastareaud was forced off 15 minutes into Lyon’s 12-8 Top 14 defeat versus Brive on December 27 and his quadriceps tendon rupture was operated on three days later. At the time, the 54-cap French international took to Twitter to say: “End of season. Now we look straight ahead to come back in 2021. Thank you all for your messages.” 

His most recent tweet on August 23 showed him on the Lyon training ground and it has now been reported by rugbyrama.fr that he is in line to make his comeback in this Friday’s pre-season friendly versus Clermont in Issoire.

Bastareaud initially joined Lyon as a medical joker at the start of the 2019/20 season, providing World Cup cover before moving on to his already-arranged deal to play for Rugby United New York in the 2020 Major League Rugby campaign. 

However, with that season ended prematurely by the pandemic, Bastareaud opted to return to Lyon, the Top 14 outfit who now have ambitions of finishing much higher than the ninth position they wound up occupying at the end of the 2020/21 season.  

A club source was quoted as saying: “Mathieu worked very well during his convalescence. He will certainly only play a few minutes because it will be a recovery for him with the contacts, but it is very good news for the whole team.”

Lyon are struggling to assemble their star roster ahead of the new campaign which starts on September 5 with a home match versus Clermont. For instance, Josua Tuisova is reportedly still stranded in Fiji due to pandemic restrictions.

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Bull Shark 2 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

Of the rugby I’ve born witness to in my lifetime - 1990 to date - I recognize great players throughout those years. But I have no doubt the game and the players are on average better today. So I doubt going back further is going to prove me wrong. The technical components of the game, set pieces, scrums, kicks, kicks at goal. And in general tactics employed are far more efficient, accurate and polished. Professional athletes that have invested countless hours on being accurate. There is one nation though that may be fairly competitive in any era - and that for me is the all blacks. And New Zealand players in general. NZ produces startling athletes who have fantastic ball skills. And then the odd phenomenon like Brooke. Lomu. Mcaw. Carter. Better than comparing players and teams across eras - I’ve often had this thought - that it would be very interesting to have a version of the game that is closer to its original form. What would the game look like today if the rules were rolled back. Not rules that promote safety obviously - but rules like: - a try being worth 1 point and conversion 2 points. Hence the term “try”. Earning a try at goals. Would we see more attacking play? - no lifting in the lineouts. - rucks and break down laws in general. They looked like wrestling matches in bygone eras. I wonder what a game applying 1995 rules would look like with modern players. It may be a daft exercise, but it would make for an interesting spectacle celebrating “purer” forms of the game that roll back the rules dramatically by a few versions. Would we come to learn that some of the rules/combinations of the rules we see today have actually made the game less attractive? I’d love to see an exhibition match like that.

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