BOD memories

[Dave Cahill]

But they were churning out centres like maso charvet sella and boneval or back 3 players like blanco lafond esteve lagisquet and then saddling them the likes of berbizer and lescabaro (sp) at half back, they even turned mesnel into a crash ball fly half!

Why so many great 3/4 but so many bang average 9's and 10's ?

Good point about the T14 it is often like watching paint dry, two giant packs bashing the daylights out of each other, the worst of the top 3 leagues in Europe when it comes to providing entertaining rugby

The 9s and 10s weren't there to serve the backs, they were there to serve the pack. Berbizier et al were great forwards scrum halves and that was what French rugby wanted from their 9s. In the anglophone world, the game is mostly played around and controlled by the 10 - traditionally in France it was the 9

[Morf]

How dare you omit le petit général!

Mon dieu!

[JB1973]

But they were churning out centres like maso charvet sella and boneval or back 3 players like blanco lafond esteve lagisquet and then saddling them the likes of berbizer and lescabaro (sp) at half back, they even turned mesnel into a crash ball fly half!

Why so many great 3/4 but so many bang average 9's and 10's ?

Good point about the T14 it is often like watching paint dry, two giant packs bashing the daylights out of each other, the worst of the top 3 leagues in Europe when it comes to providing entertaining rugby

The 9s and 10s weren't there to serve the backs, they were there to serve the pack. Berbizier et al were great forwards scrum halves and that was what French rugby wanted from their 9s. In the anglophone world, the game is mostly played around and controlled by the 10 - traditionally in France it was the 9

I get what you mean about 9's being the controllers in French rugby is that a deliberate ploy or just because they had no world class tens . Guys like loveridge wright Joost and even Edwards once john retired were controllers of their teams as well but they had far more to their game than any French 9 had.

Guys like berbezier , para etc were good but not great maybe around the pinnear type standard I would say, I can't recall any French ten who was anything above average and some of them were down right rotten. Lescabbarro (sp) was the only I can recall doing much and that was mainly because he was so good at dropping goals. As you say it's proably because of the style of rugby they play over there but when Wilkinson wasn't he the main director of play at ten ?

Foroux was before my time and I haven't seen many clips of him so I can't really comment

[Flash Gordon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Og0_C_xks

is the Brenan incident you mean I think

fair to say he lost that one on points but he was tag teamed!

There you go, Andy Ward was over quickly. Not sure how Brennan got cited for that, he seemed to be largely acting as the punchbag! On another note, how loose was Keith Wood? WTF was he doing on the wing?

Off topic slightly but Wood was always great to watch and a great force with the ball in hand. but when it came to getting stuck in rucks/mauls he wasn't the keenest

Yeah for sure. Incredible talent for sure but he was a bit of a loose cannon. i remember him in Paris in 2002 (I think). Threw a cr@p line out from the mess that ensued he gave away a penalty from which France scored and that set the tone and France put 40 points on us. I remember one of the pack saying the Woody was so loose that it was like playing with 7 forwards. Think the 1997 Lions made the most of the brilliance of Woody while curbing the worst of of ill discipline. You know Jim Telfer was never going to tolerate one of his lads playing like a fancy dan winger.

[Dave Cahill]

Toulon had a huge number of players from the Rugby Anglosphere - in the 2014 final only Tillous Borde, Ciocci and Basteraud were french starters, the rest were English, Aussies, Kiwis, Saffers and Argentinian - they played a kind of rugby we'd be more familiar with than the rest of the top14.

France has had very good outhalves, but they were french outhalves, came up through the french system and so played a french game. Thats not to say that guys like Didier Camberabero or Thierry Lacroix were limited in terms of ability - they certainly weren't, but they played the game a certain way.

[JB1973]

I can remember Didier Camberabero being a nippy winger back in the 1987 world cup

Off topic again but didn't he have a weave or hair transplant or something?

I can remember it being a big thing back in the day