LONG READ How humble Pau are slowly turning into Top 14 powerhouse

When the draw for the Champions Cup pools was made the likes of Leinster and Leicester in Pool One must have breathed a sigh of relief. They’d avoided the big boys of the Top 14: no Bordeaux, no Toulouse, no La Rochelle and no Racing.

This quartet has appeared in at least one of the last seven Champions Cup finals. And, of course, there is also Montpellier, who thrashed Ulster 59-26 in the final of last season’s Challenge Cup.

The two French clubs in Pool One – which also contains Sale Sharks and Glasgow Warriors – are Clermont and Pau. A decade ago Clermont was a European force, losing in the final to Toulon in 2013 and 2015. Those days are a distant memory for a club that hasn’t contested a Top 14 semi-final this decade.

As for Pau – who host Leicester on Sunday – the last of their Top 14 titles was in 1964; the only silverware they’ve won since was the Challenge Cup in 2000. The following season they reached the quarter-final of the then Heineken Cup – and didn’t reappear in the tournament until last season.

The 21st century hasn’t been kind to Pau. They were relegated to the ProD2 at the end of the 2005-06 season and it took them a decade to claw their way back to the Top 14. The next few years were about survival; they bore the scars from numerous relegation dogfights but somehow they avoided the drop.

The turning point was in the summer of 2021 when the then 43-year-old Sébastien Piqueronies was appointed manager.

He found a club in a slump with little vision and little ambition. But that was why Piqueronies had been hired. Pau wanted him to do to their club what he had done to France U20s.

When the former P.E teacher took charge of the ‘Les Bleuets’ for the 2017-18 season they had never won their age group world cup. They won it in 2018, beating England in the final, and the following year France U20s retained their title against Australia. They might have made it a hat-trick of wins in 2020 had not Covid caused the tournament to be cancelled.

In an interview that year Piqueronies reflected on those back-to-back titles: “For two years, they’ve been measuring themselves against the world’s best and have realised that they’re more than a match for them,” he said. However, he added, it was crucial to build a pathway for this gifted generation from junior to senior rugby. ‘Our work on succession planning must enable us to ensure the long-term sustainability of this player development,’ said Piqueronies.

If they do [win a World Cup], the core of the squad will have been developed at some point under Piqueronies: Ramos, Ntamack, Marchand, Woki, Brennan, Gros, Bemba, Barassi and Antoine Dupont.

‘It’s a process we began some time ago with the youth teams, and I believe we are now reaping the rewards of that work…we are in a phase that will lay the foundations for the sustainability of our results.’

Piqueronies’s faith wasn’t misplaced. Six years later France are the dominant nation in the northern hemisphere and arguably the only European side capable of winning the 2027 World Cup. If they do, the core of the squad will have been developed at some point under Piqueronies: Ramos, Ntamack, Marchand, Woki, Brennan, Gros, Bemba, Barassi and Antoine Dupont.

Piqueronies developed some of these players when he ran the Toulouse youth academy fifteen years ago. Thomas Ramos was one. ‘I simply must mention Sébastien Piqueronies, who was my head coach,’ he recalled of this time. ‘He put his trust in me and helped me improve enormously over three years. During that period, from the age of 15 to 18, I owe him a great deal, not least because he helped me build my self-confidence.’

This is the key to Piqueronies. He is not just a superb coach, he is also a nurturer, drawing on his experience as a P.E teacher in order to get the best from a player technically and emotionally.

They are attributes that he has used to great effect at Pau. They are no longer the whipping boys. Last season the club whose backdrop are the Pyrenees finished fourth, qualifying for the play-offs for the first time in 26 years.

This season, as the Top 14 takes a break for Europe, Pau are second, tucked in behind Toulouse with five wins from six matches. Not bad for a club whose budget is 33.9m euros, nearly half that of Toulouse’s 60.8m euros.

Piqueronies has assembled a squad that blends youth with experience. Among his early signings were the English half-back duo of Dan Robson and Joe Simmonds, and All Black Sam Whitelock, who joined his brother Luke, an arrival in 2019.

In the last couple of season other blistering talents have emerged, including Fabien Brau-Boirie and Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, both of whom have been capped by France.

Robson signed in autumn 2022 after Wasps went into administration. The England scrum-half had a host of offers from Premiership clubs but he plumped for Pau. ‘I got a call from Pau, we had a zoom with them,’ he explained at the time. ‘I was impressed with the head coach.’

Alongside these wise heads were players still in their teens: Théo Attissogbe, Hugo Auradou Emilien Gailleton, Axel Despérès and Clément Mondinat. In the last couple of season other blistering talents have emerged, including Fabien Brau-Boirie and Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, both of whom have been capped by France.

In a recent interview with Midi Olympique, Piqueronies elaborated on what he had said in 2020 about building an effective pathway. “We need to anticipate and coordinate the emergence of these young talents,” he said. “We no longer wait until a player is 21 to assess his potential. We take a chance. We’re betting on a 17-year-old and making bold gambles, backed by concrete support measures.”

It’s about trusting in youth, he added. “Exceptional young players can only emerge if they’re pitted against the best. Otherwise, they’ll never reach the very highest level.”
No one in the Top 14 takes a punt on youth more than Piqueronies. It was he who spotted something in Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang that no one had during his upbringing in England. So Piqueronies made his move and now the Londoner is playing for France. “I was lucky enough to have Seb who offered me the chance to come to Pau,” said Grandidier-Nkanang, after his first cap in the summer. “I want to thank the staff at Pau. They didn’t give up on me. At some clubs, I might have been sidelined. But they gave me my chance”.

By trusting in youth, Piqueronies is turning Pau into the new French powerhouse.