On paper, there was little out of the ordinary about Friday’s preseason friendly between impending Top 14 rivals Biarritz and Bordeaux.
Fifteen days out from the start of the new season, the two sides took to the pitch to iron out a few of those last remaining avant-campaign kinks in a glorified in-game training session –a chance to try out combinations and moves, blow off some cobwebs, test game plans and compare fitness notes in front of a few thousand fans, grateful at long last to warm-up their vocal chords.
The two squads were expectedly bloated in a 28-7 victory for Bordeaux, with th...