Justine Pelletier: 'It's unusual for Bordeaux to be in third position but the season is still young'

The French AXA Élite 1 season started soon after the 2025 World Cup despite not all the internationals being back. When I arrived after the World Cup Bordeaux had already played one game and they’re due to play two games while I go away to play in the Pacific Four Series.

We had a rough start to the season beginning with two losses which was a surprise. But they were against two big teams in Toulouse and Clermont. I think the top four this year will be very strong, so it’s good competition. Since we’re the defending champions, it’s unusual for us to be in third position in the league right now. But the season is still young and we have a lot of games coming up.

For us now, all the internationals and players who had injuries are back so we have a pretty strong team with a strong structure. I think it’s going to be a interesting end of season!

I’ve been acting as captain of the club for the past few games. I’m actually one of the oldest at the club and it’s my sixth season. I turn 30 next week, actually. When you stay at a club for so long, you go through transitions and I’ve been with Bordeaux as they’ve grown, as they’ve improved the structure and become more professional- it kind of gives me this feeling of being attached to the club.

The new France head coach François Ratier was my former coach at Bordeaux. He is very player-led in his mindset and open to new ideas or anything we wanted to put in place or implement. He was always super open and was giving us a key to say, ‘okay, show me what you want and we’ll put it in place.’ That approach kept us engaged in the project and if we had an idea we were heard.

It’s been an unusual season with François leaving and the weeks after the World Cup and the final loss to England hit pretty hard. We were kind of on a high during the World Cup and it’s just going back to a normal life, to a life a little bit less stimulating which was kind of hard because it was a fast transition too.

To go back to the team here with a different vibe, different speed, different objectives was a challenge. Especially since the transition between international rugby, even to the highest level in club rugby, is very different.

It was a bit tough and even after a few weeks you’re like ‘I think I’m maybe still not okay’. The break at Christmas was really good because I had time to go back home and recharge and do nothing. It was actually the first Christmas in three years that I’ve been home to Canada. But I will say, it was not that easy. Often we underestimated the break we need after those big events.

There was some good to come off the back of the World Cup, I had a lot of podcasts call me and a lot of new media attention here. I also got approached by a content creator to do a day in the life of Justine and we ended up doing six episodes which was really cool and something which happened out of the blue.

A lot of spectators and Bordeaux fans came up to me to congratulate me for the World Cup. And it’s been a good boost for my social media for sure!

 

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Away from the field, I’m in my first year studying at the Université de Bordeaux, I’m doing a Masters in High Performance Optimisation. So that’s a bit of a juggle, but I’m having a lot of fun learning new stuff and working my brain in a different area, but still in sport. I’m very interested in the little details, where we can do better to improve the structure and the club is very open about it and includes me in a lot of discussions.

I have a student contract with Bordeaux so it’s possible to study and work and play at the same time. The club hired me to train and also to help develop their underage programmes. So I’m a consultant, building a programme that’s sustainable for the youth players which I really enjoy.

The style of the game at the club suits me. I really like the way the French play in general. Since I moved to France, I’ve learned a lot about trusting my instincts, playing without structure, and just enjoying the ball in the game.

It’s something I’ve learned because when I arrived here I was pretty robotic. I was super disciplined in certain areas and it’s kind of pushed me to unlock this unpredictable nature to my game, and sometimes it’s frustrating because it causes a lot of errors or it looks messy.

But it’s very satisfying to pierce the defence or to score tries that came from nothing. I like that about Les Bleues and we also see it with Canada, we play a mix of a structured and an unpredictable game, where anything is possible.

Bordeaux continue their Élite 1 season and remain in third place with 11 matches played.