Top 14 club-by-club 2020/21 season preview: Stade Francais
It seems Stade Francais are always rebuilding these days. But there’s something in the air at Stade Jean Bouin that suggests, this time, things could be a little different…
Key signing
Telusa Veainu. Stade poker-faced their market interest until very late – then made some smart, targeted signings. They grabbed Veainu on a three-season deal from Leicester at the second attempt. With Grobler and Kremer, too, Stade have brought in some serious added talent … but here’s another Top 14 side heading rapidly to Made in France status.
Key departure
Jules Plisson. Another big clearout year at Stade, but it’s hard to look past the fly-half, who left his childhood club back in November – and then wasted little time showing the Parisians what they could have – still – had. In what turned out to be left of the shortened season, he picked up two Top 14 player of the month titles.
They say
“The coming season is going to look like a World Cup season, with a lot of [domestic and international matches on the same weekends]. This was our weakness last year, as our results were often based on individual performances. All our work is to make the team grow and that we only speak of the collective and not of internationals or individuals.” (Assistant coach Laurent Sempere, actu.fr)
We say
A coronavirus outbreak at Stade Jean Bouin came at the wrong time for Stade Francais. Two weeks before the Paris side were due to kick off the Top 14 season against Bordeaux, the club confirmed ‘a number’ of players had tested positive following a training camp in Nice.
Details in the club statement were vague – but L’Equipe had earlier reported ‘more than a dozen’ players were under quarantine. Within hours, unsurprisingly, a planned friendly against Brive less than a week later was called off.
Training halted
Things got worse and Stade were forced to halt all collective training pending the results of further tests. The club denied reports in the French press that 25 people were affected.
A second round of tests found the outbreak had been contained. Pending the results of further tests, some players may be able to return to training in the week beginning August 17.
That’s the state of play of the acute health problem at Stade. Let’s now take a wider look at the club ahead of the new season.
While it’s true to say the club’s more careful recruitment shows more coherence than in recent seasons, coronavirus looks like it could have a crucial word on the opening block. How Stade handle that will go a long way to defining their season.
Officially, nine players (including hooker Remi Bonfils, who retired on medical grounds) left Stade Francais at the end of last season. If we include mid-season departures, that figure rises to 17.
Stade Francais get their man … again
But the most important arrival is returning head coach Gonzalo Quesada. Rarely has it been so apparent that a coach has to truly understand a club’s philosophy. Heyneke Meyer may have been a thoroughly decent man and a World Cup-winning coach, but the players could not buy-in to his battering-ram rugby ethos. The fans certainly didn’t.
Quesada, Stade know, gets it. Now he has to prove to owner Hans-Peter Wild he gets it. It was, perhaps, telling that Wild was very much present at that fateful training camp in Nice recently, where he promise-warned that he would ‘be more present’ at the club than in previous seasons.
Wild knows rugby. But he needs to pull off a difficult balancing act. Too much Wild could be a bad thing for Stade and Quesada in what is – yet another – crucial rebuild year.
Arrivals
Vasil Kakovin; Gerbrandt Grobler; Marcos Kremer; Telusa Veainu
Departures
Thierry Futeu; Sione Anga’aelangi; Hugh Pyle; Joketani Koroi; Clement Daguin; Lionel Mapoe; Alexis Palisson; Ruan Combrinck
Comments on RugbyPass
Bulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis 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”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to comments