LONG READ ‘You can’t build a dynasty without a strong DNA - Toulouse’s is stronger than Bordeaux’s'

The week after Bordeaux dumped Toulouse out of the Champions Cup for the second consecutive season, they visited La Rochelle.

Bordeaux were thumped 45-15. The defeat leaves them fifth in the Top 14 table and with five matches of the regular season remaining, only 11 points separate Montpellier in third and Toulon in ninth. It will be a dogfight for the six play-off places.

But not for Toulouse. There are 12 points between them and Pau in second. While Bordeaux’s second string were being hammered by La Rochelle, Toulouse’s were winning their local derby away at Castres, their first victory at the venue since 2019.

Only three of the XV – Romain Ntamack, Emmanuel Meafou and Santiago Chocobares – had started the European quarter-final; the rest were all youngsters or veterans who had missed out on selection against Bordeaux.

It underlined the resources Toulouse have, a strength that will be deepened next season with the arrival of Italy’s Tommaso Menoncello, one of the best centres in world rugby.

Centre has been a problem position this season for Toulouse as they hunt a fourth consecutive Top 14 title, a feat that has only been achieved once since the 1920s – Toulouse’s four wins between 1993-94 and 1996-97.

Test centre Pierre-Louis Barassi has missed long periods with repeated concussion and Pita Ahki returned to New Zealand at the end of November. The 23-year-old Paul Costes hasn’t quite kicked on as well as expected, bearing in mind he started the 2024 Champions Cup final win against Leinster.

This has resulted, in the words of attack coach Clement Poitrenaud, in “a lack of offensive creativity, which has been our strength in recent seasons”.

The arrival of Menoncello – the Six Nations player of the tournament in 2024 – should offer Toulouse more in this area.

Toulouse is in the process of regenerating, the gradual phasing out of a generation which includes François Cros, Cyril Baille, Rodrigue Neti and Dorian Aldegheri, and the emergence of the next one.

Up front, one or two of the Toulouse pack have started to look their age this season. Jean Bouilhou, the Toulouse forwards coach, was frank in his assessment of the pack’s performance against Bordeaux. With the exception of Jack Willis, it was sub-standard. “Some didn’t show against Bordeaux,” Bouilhou told Midi Olympique. “It was the case last year and we didn’t hesitate to call those players out.”

The encouragement for Toulouse is the young talent coming through; four of the pack which started against Castres were under 25, including prop Paul Mallez and flanker Josh Brennan. I mentioned the pair six years ago when I interviewed a teenage Brennan. He told me how he and Mallez were part of a generation that had come through Toulouse’s development system. “They want all the youngsters to play the way they do in the first team,” explained Brennan. “So as you come up through the ages in Toulouse you have the same calls…it creates the Toulouse DNA from a young age.”

Toulouse is in the process of regenerating, the gradual phasing out of a generation which includes François Cros, Cyril Baille, Rodrigue Neti and Dorian Aldegheri, and the emergence of the next one.

Bordeaux exploited this changing of the guard in the Champions Cup quarter-final but they will soon have to undergo their own regeneration.

Several key members of their squad are in their mid-30s: props Ben Tameifuna and Jefferson Poirot, second-row Adam Coleman and scrum-half Maxime Lucu, arguably their most reliable and influential player during their rise to the top of European rugby.

As Bordeaux’s defeat at La Rochelle demonstrated, their ‘DNA’ is not as strong as Toulouse’s. Most of their players were developed at other clubs: Grenoble for Marko Gazzotti and Louis Bielle-Biarrey, for example, Brive for Poirot, Biarritz for Lucu, Clermont in the case of Damian Penaud and Cameron Woki cut his teeth at Massy in the suburbs of Paris.

Yannick Bru, who was appointed head coach in 2023, will have to show the same skill for poaching promising talent as some of his predecessors in the coming season or two. If he doesn’t, Bordeaux may experience the same dizzying fall as La Rochelle.

Like the current Bordeaux squad, several key members of the La Rochelle side in 2023 were on the wrong side of 30: Brice Dulin, Jonathan Danty, Levani Botia, Will Skelton and Uini Atonio.

Coached by Irishman Ronan O’Gara, they won back-to-back European titles in 2022 and 2023 and there was much talk about empire-building in the media. One Irish newspaper wrote that “O’Gara’s Euro vision for La Rochelle is more about dynasty than destiny” and added that the former fly-half had “signed a five-year deal to finish a job he feels he has only started.”

No one was more bullish than O’Gara. “Our plan is to establish a dynasty,” he declared after retaining the Champions Cup in 2023.

How quickly that plan unravelled. They finished seventh in the Top 14 last season, failing to qualify for the play-offs for the first time since 2018, and this season they didn’t make it out of the pool stage for the Champions Cup.

Like the current Bordeaux squad, several key members of the La Rochelle side in 2023 were on the wrong side of 30: Brice Dulin, Jonathan Danty, Levani Botia, Will Skelton and Uini Atonio.

As their powers began fading the following season, La Rochelle didn’t have the ready-made replacements. Furthermore, the club did some short-sighted dabbling in the transfer market, signing a raft of 30-somethings in the twilight of their careers: the likes of Kane Douglas, Teddy Iribaren, Tolu Latu and Jack Nowell.

RugbyPass reported last month that O’Gara is planning a summer clear-out with at least eight players emptying their locker. Among the players linked to a move to La Rochelle are Saracens forward Theo McFarland, who turns 31 this year, and Springboks lock Salmaan Moerat, who is 28. Are these the right profiles to rejuvenate a struggling club?

O’Gara assembled a superb squad at the beginning of this decade, just as Toulon did at the start of the 2010s. They achieved success but it was short-lived. Will that be the case at Bordeaux?

You can’t build a dynasty without a strong DNA.