New season and new challenges for the Top 14 clubs, from Saturday 4 September, with the resumption of play on the pitch and the return of the public to the stands. New faces and top names ever more inclined to compete with Stade Toulousain, the reigning double winner (the 2019-2020 championship had been interrupted due to the Covid-19), not to mention new rules that could change the game and make it even more offensive. Overview of the different keys of this 2021-2022 season to know everything before the start of hostilities.
Toulouse, a double to defend
Achieve two consecutive doubles, no one has. Author, in 1996, of the first double in the European Championship-Cup, Stade Toulousain reproduced it twenty-five years later. In the meantime, only Toulon, under the Bernard Laporte era, had achieved it in 2014, but no one repeated it for a second consecutive year. This is the XXL challenge facing the Rouge et Noir this season, marked by the departures of several executives in the workforce (Yoann Huget, Jérôme Kaino and Cheslin Kolbe), but always ready to rely on its pool of young people from Training.
A faculty to regenerate and reinvent itself advocated by coach Ugo Mola, as a worthy heir to the Pierre Villepreux or Guy Novès before him. “Relying on our status would be a monumental mistake […] If our team is alert, we will continue to perform well. If she falls asleep, she will become ordinary. It is not even for the players to question themselves, but to assume the status which is theirs today “, he announced Friday at a press conference. A warning for a club used to being expected on all terrains in France and whose tradition of training and good play has often allowed it to be one step ahead of others.
Kuridrani, Laumape, Nakarawa, Jaminet … The new headliners
A new generation of French players was born during the XV de France summer tour in Australia. Captain and third wing Anthony Jelonch (25) from Castres to Stade Toulousain will be one of the main headliners of the season with a new status to be confirmed. The same goes for the one who has never played a minute in the top flight until then, but who also impressed this summer in Blue with the back of the USAP Melvyn Jaminet (22 years old), so determining the season last in Pro D2. Among the forerunners, several talents are also announced with Léo Berdeu (LOU), Joris Segonds (Stade Français) or Antoine Hastoy (Pau).
The offseason also made it possible to renew some squads with a usual tendency to turn to players from Super Rugby and the Southern Hemisphere. The flashy arrivals of Australian center Tevita Kuridrani (30) at promoted Biarritz for his first experience in Europe, and All Black Ngani Laumape (28) at Stade Français are the most significant. Not to mention those of the overpowered Fijian second row Leone Nakarawa (33) in Toulon and the New Zealand opening half Lima Sopoaga (30) to give an even more offensive face to the Top 14.
Cheslin Kolbe, the transfer in the form of a revolution
His hasty transfer at the end of August from Toulouse to the harbor of Toulon caused a lot of talk. At 27, Cheslin Kolbe, the Springbok winger with 18 caps, has decided to give a new turn to his career. Beyond its own choice, the manner and the amount have given rise to discussion for a sport accustomed to seeing its players leave at the end of their contract. A very important transfer in the world of rugby, negotiated to buy the last two years of the 2019 world champion’s contract, which follows that of Gaël Fickou at the end of last season.
Passed last April from Stade Français to Racing 92, that is to say in the middle of the season, the three-quarter center of the Blues had already made a lot of noise in the microcosm of the oval. At RMC’s microphone, Toulon president Bernard Lemaître simply explained: “We are not opening a new era. It is already open. We are recruiting Kolbe before the start of the season, it is a completely normal transfer.” Concretely nothing prohibits this type of transfer during the season, only habits are upset: those of an old and tenacious system where any contract remains the keystone between a player and his club.
The return of the public to the stadiums
The news was expected by rugby fans, it is now effective. Made possible by the end of the gauges on June 30 and the extension of the sanitary pass, the great return of the public to 100% in the stadiums will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of this first weekend of Top 14. An atmosphere found which should bring an extra soul to home teams like the Stade Rochelais and its fervent audience of Marcel-Deflandre.
Before the cut-off due to Covid-19 in March 2020, the Maritimes had a 100% occupancy rate on the 16,000 places in the Rochelle area. Vice-champion of France and Europe, the Rochelais will undoubtedly find their 16th man able to make them cross a course. A second wind also for the troubled finances of the elite clubs, some of which were more than in danger last year after almost an entire season behind closed doors.
The 50:22 rule and its influence on the game
Each year, a series of rules appear in the Top 14. Of the five new features introduced by World Rugby since August 1, the 50:22 rule is arguably the most debated. Promoted to make the game more fluid and give an advantage to offensive teams, this novelty is rather easy to understand: the formation which hits indirectly in touch from its half of the field in the opposing 22 meters, or from its 22 meters in the opposing half of the field, will have the throw in his favor.
Tested last season in Super Rugby, this rule should encourage defenses to distribute their players more evenly and less concentrated in an area of the pitch. On the side of the opponents, fears about an extended occupation game and kicking at all costs are very much alive. First part of the answer, Saturday at 2 p.m., for the opening match of the season between Biarritz and Bordeaux-Bègles.
Perpignan and Biarritz, the return of two strongholds
Two renowned clubs, whose superb are reborn from their “ashes”. Pillars of the 2000s and the beginning of the 2010s, the USAP (French champion in 2009, finalist in 2010) and Biarritz Olympique (French champion in 2002, 2005, 2006) are back in the deep end. Two years after leaving him, the Sang et Ors are back in the Top 14 fields with the firm intention of not repeating the mistakes of the past. An experience of champion de Pro D2 and a collective little modified to quickly focus on a single objective : the upkeep. Led by their captain Mathieu Acebes, the Catalans want to start strong to do better than the only two successes acquired during his last experience in the top flight.
A comeback that Biarritz Olympique did not necessarily expect last season. After an incredible barrage of accession against Bayonne at the Aguilera stadium (6-6, 6-5 tab), on June 12, the Basques opted for a recruitment that lived up to their expectations (Kuridrani, Cronin, Herron). Seven years after their last season in the elite, their return promises to be perilous, they who hope like Perpignan to play the roles of referee against the big teams for places in the final stages of the Top 14.
–
