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Six Super Rugby Heroes Who Turned Out To Be Top 14 Zeroes

By James Harrington
Quade Cooper was described as pâté by Toulon president Mourad Boudjellal. Image: Getty

Meet some of the big stars of southern hemisphere rugby who found the game in France is somewhat tougher than they may have been led to believe

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Contrary to the opinion of many a Super Rugby-raised armchair critic, the French Top 14 is not quite the cushy cash-rich pension plan enjoyed by old All Blacks, along with a litany of less-deserving has-beens, coulda-beens and never-weres.

Here, in no particular order, are just a few of the hyped-up Super Rugby stars who have struggled to cope with life on the other side of the world in the longest and toughest domestic competition in world rugby.

PIRI WEEPU
In a French adventure as short as it was unsweet, 2011 World Cup-winner Piri Weepu joined ambitious Top 14 side Oyonnax on a two-year deal at the start of the 2015/16 season following a brief spell in the UK.

His contract ended the following January in what was described at the time as: ‘an amicable separation between both parties’. How amicable that separation actually was is in some doubt, as Weepu is claiming €500,000 from the club.

His time at Oyonnax – a side that has since dropped to the ProD2 – was dogged by injury and overshadowed by allegations concerning his behaviour.

Thanks to a little help from former All Black teammate Sitiveni Sivivatu, an officially unemployed Weepu next popped up training with Saint-Sulpice-sur-Tarn, an amateur side playing in the sixth tier of French rugby, and was last seen plying his trade with ProD2 club Narbonne.

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MORNE STEYN
To give the South African his due, he has stuck it out at Stade Francais  – but for the longest time it looked certain that the words ‘mutual consent’ would appear on a press release about the untimely end of his three-year deal, signed in August 2013.

In an interview in May 2014, Stade’s ever-diplomatic president Thomas Savare described Steyn’s first year at the club – in which he started just nine out of 26 domestic games – as ‘one of the season’s disappointments’.

The following January when he barely registered on the team list, featuring in a couple of outings in the competition-no-one-wants, the European Challenge Cup, and a little bench-warming work, he finally got a chance at a Top 14 start. And promptly got himself sent off for doing this.

Stade’s coach Gonzalo Quesada is another of king of the understatement. All he said afterwards was: “He wasted a great opportunity. There’s not much more to say.”

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Steyn, at least, was able to turn his Parisian fortunes around, making the most of a last chance when Plisson was injured, to marshall Stade to Top 14 glory in 2014 and then sign a two-year contract extension, but it was a close-run thing.

DIGBY IOANE
If Steyn’s start at Stade was difficult, Ioane’s was desperate. He arrived in 2013, after a successful spell with Queensland Reds and the Wallabies, but – like so many before him, in and out of rugby, struggled with the change in culture and language.

Rumour has it he sounded out then-Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie about an early return to Australia before the end of the first season of his two-year contract. In the end, he stuck out the full term of his deal – scoring five times in 25 matches – before moving to Honda Heat in Japan.

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QUADE COOPER
Unlike his counterpart at Stade Francais, Toulon president and cartoonish moustache-twirling Top 14 baddie Mourad Boudjellal is rarely one to mince his words. After one particularly poor performance, he was asked whether Australian 10 Cooper would ever fill the big boots left by a certain Jonny Wilkinson at the club.

His response? “It’s difficult to go from foie gras to pâté.”

Cooper’s card was irredeemably marked. After initial excitement following the signing, Boudjellal never rated Cooper in the same league as Wilkinson, Matt Giteau or veteran Frederic Michalak.

Cooper struggled to force his way into the star-studded Toulon side, managing just 15 games before activating a trapdoor clause in his two-year deal that allowed him to leave at the end of his first season.

ZAC GUILDFORD
One of the game’s troubled souls, Guildford has found trouble wherever his career has taken him – whether it’s in New Zealand, Australia or in France.

Shortly after making his debut for Clermont, he was injured in a late-night assault in the town and forced to miss a couple of games. He then suddenly quit halfway through a two-year deal and returned home, citing personal reasons. Sadly, as has been reported far and wide, his troubles have continued.

DAN CARTER
Yes, the double World Cup-winning Dan Carter and routinely acknowledged best 10 ever. Not, it has to be said, the current one, who’s living it up in Paris on a tasty €1m-plus-a-year deal in between playing some seriously good rugby for Racing 92.

No, we’re talking about the Dan Carter who, in June 2008, took a sabbatical from New Zealand rugby and signed a six-month contract with then-Top 14 side Perpignan, for a reported £30,000 per game.

He only managed five games before rupturing his achilles against Stade Francais.

The Catalan side went on to win the Top 14 title without their expensive signing, but have struggled since on and off the field, and are currently in the bottom half of the French second-tier ProD2. Even today, on some streets in the Catalan city, Carter’s name is Mudd, with many blaming his inflated salary eight years ago for the club’s current parlous state.

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Jon 6 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 9 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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A
Adrian 11 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

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