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Turmoil In Toulon: French Rugby's Greatest Soap Opera

By James Harrington
Mourad Boudjellal

Three weeks into the Top 14 season and there is already talk of a big team sacking their coach, writes James Harrington.

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ATTENTION! Urgence! Au secours! (as they say in France). The Top 14 is not going according to plan.

After three rounds the relative paupers Brive and La Rochelle occupy the top two slots, while star-studded moneybags sides Toulon, Montpellier and Bordeaux languish in 11th, 12th and 13th places.

Thankfully Racing 92, Clermont and Toulouse are keeping the flag flying for the league’s elite.

The early pace-setters deserve their lofty positions. La Rochelle followed their first away win in 518 days with a second victory on the road just seven days later.

Brive, meanwhile, duked their way to a first win in a decade at Toulon’s Stade Mayol. That win was again courtesy of the howitzer boot of fullback Gaetan Germain, and the collective headless chicken impression from Toulon – with the honourable exception of Gaetan’s opposite number Leigh Halfpenny, who salvaged some club pride with another perfect penalty-tee performance.

Just three games into the new season, the word ‘crisis’ can clearly be heard in the corridors of power at the Top 14 soap opera club Toulon.

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The fact is head coach Diego Dominguez, who took over from Bernard Laporte this summer, seems to be on borrowed time – just three competitive matches into a job it was always doubtful he was actually ready for.

Club President Mourad Boudjellal told a press conference after the Brive defeat that he was at the ‘limits of his patience’ with a side that boasts 800 international caps but could not win at home.

Dominguez, he said, has ‘one last chance’ to prove he’s the man for the big chair. That last chance is at Toulouse – who have had the measure of Toulon in recent meetings.

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The magnanimous Boudjellal, at least, said they do not have to win. But he is looking for a much better performance.

Unfortunately for Dominguez, Toulon’s Top 14 fixture list does not get any easier after the Toulouse game. The following week they’re at Racing 92. Then there’s Clermont and Montpellier at home, and finally a visit to La Rochelle before the European Champions Cup kicks off in October. That starts with the visit of reigning champions Saracens.

There was a collective ‘huh?’ when, at the start of the 2015/16 season, Boudjellal revealed Dominguez would eventually replace Laporte as head coach.

There’s no denying Dominguez’s playing credentials. The Argentina-born Italian international is one of only five players to have scored more than 1,000 Test points. He played in three World Cups, and was the mainstay of the Italian side in the early years of the Six Nations. At club level, he won the French championship in 1998 with Stade Francais.

But he arrived at Toulon with precisely no coaching experience. The idea, Boudjellal said, was for him to develop his nascent coaching skills under the guidance of Laporte before taking sole charge of a squad of highly paid egos.

Really.

Rumours that it was not going according to plan quickly surfaced. Dominguez was supposed to take over in January 2016. But Laporte stuck around until the end of a trophyless season amid reports that his successor was – unaccountably – not ready.

Then ex-Montpellier coach Fabien Galthie said he’d been speaking to Toulon about taking over the big chair, despite the fact that, due to convoluted and frankly weird French bureaucracy, he is still technically on the books at Montpellier, even though he got the push there in November 2014.

Regardless of what happens with Dominguez, Galthie is out of the reckoning until at least November, when an employment tribunal is set to rule on various aspects of his dismissal.

Back in Toulon, there followed a spat over the arrival of forwards coach Marc Del Maso at the start of pre-season training. Dominguez reportedly wanted to appoint his own backroom team, but Boudjellal went ahead and gave Del Maso the key job and presented his head coach with a fait accompli.

Now, it appears the former France hooker and his predecessor Jacques Delmas – who is still at Toulon but whose responsibilities have been reduced to coaching lineouts and a pitchside shouting role – are not playing nicely.

Another recent appointment, defence coach Grant Doorey, has reportedly been shown the door after little more than a month at the club.

Stick around, keep watching. The Toulon soap opera will continue. And don’t be surprised if Boudjellal decides he’s the man to coach the team – after all a fortune made from comic books and graphic novels is the perfect training for a Top 14 club coach, right?

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Jon 4 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 7 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 9 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

30 Go to comments
T
Trevor 12 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

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