JAMES HARRINGTON
FRENCH COLUMN
CLERMONT coach Jono Gibbes, no doubt, breathed a huge sigh of relief, as his side came from behind to beat basement side Perpignan 31-20 at Stade Marcel Michelin and end a run of four defeats in a row.
France U20 scrum-half Baptiste Jauneau’s 73rd-minute try sent them into the lead, 10 minutes after George Tilsley had given the Catalans a shot at a first win on the road this season. Then, Bautista Delguy intercepted a pass from Jake McIntyre to seal the deal in the final minute to deny the visitors even a losing bonus.
The win won’t completely ease the pressure on a coach at an underperforming club with overwhelming ambitions, but it will at least offer him a little breathing space when he needs it most.
In June, to muted fanfare after a disappointing campaign, the club launched its ambitious ‘Clermont 2025′ project. Club president Jean-Michel Guillon, with director of rugby Jono Gibbes and sporting director Didier Retière at his side, set out a grand plan to return to regularly challenging for the Top 14 from this season, and to have a Champions Cup star on the club jersey by the end of the 2024/25 season.
There was more to the plan, involving club finances, academy development, public relations and the like, but domestic and inter-continental titles for the men’s senior squad were the headlines.
Seven months later and just over four months after the season kicked off, the rubber has well and truly hit the road. Clermont came into this weekend’s match against Perpignan in 11th place in the Top 14, with five losses, a draw and a win from their last seven Top 14 matches – the worst of any club in the French top flight over the same period.
The early stages of ‘Clermont 2025 project’ are in tatters. To paraphrase the well-worn boxing adage, it’s clear everyone has a project until they get punched in the face.
Coming into their second match of 2023 – last week’s 32-13 loss at home to Toulouse was on New Year’s Day – they were closer, as scrum-half Sebastien Bezy admitted last weekend, to the solitary relegation play-off place than the six championship play-off positions.
They’re not entirely out of the Champions Cup reckoning with one win in their opening two matches, but they face Leicester at home next weekend before travelling to South Africa for their final pool phase match against Bulls. Things have came to a head in the past fortnight, following the confirmation that Damian Penaud would leave the club at the end of the season to join new-look Bordeaux, under future coaches Yannick Bru and current France fitness guru Thibault Giroud.
Penaud wasn’t the first big club name whose departure was confirmed. Captain Arthur Iturria’s departure for Bayonne had long been known by this time, while Adrien Pelissie had confirmed his switch to Brive, and Alexandre Lapandry’s retirement was also no secret. This week, it was also reported that back row Judiciel Cancoriet is also heading to the exit door, with La Rochelle set to sign him.
The Penaud news prompted the club, through Retiere, to confirm the arrivals of prop Mohamed Haouas, from Montpellier, and hooker Folau Fainga’a, from Western Force, in an effort to soothe fans’ ruffled recruitment feathers.
But then came the 32-13 home defeat to Toulouse on New Year’s Day, Clermont’s second loss at home this season, and their first against Toulouse in 20 years. Gibbes told journalists afterwards that he was giving himself “twenty-four hours to analyse [the situation]”.
He said it not once, but three times, suggesting by repetition that it’s not just journalists and fans who suspect Clermont are a club in short-term crisis – and that the opening rounds of 2023 would be vital to their immediate future.
Thirty six hours or so later, Xavier Sadourny – part of the furniture at the club since 2012 – announced he was quitting as attack coach with immediate effect, quoted in a club statement as saying he felt, “worn out and that it was more difficult to convey messages to the players”.
Sadourny had worked with previous coaches Vern Cotter and Franck Azema in his 10 years or so at Stade Marcel Michelin and would later tell Le Montagne: “When I thought about it, and this is what I told him, when he came back two years ago, he should have started with his staff. Somehow, I represented the old staff.”
But Gibbes, it’s reported, had no plans to replace Sadourny. Which means his search for an attack coach has had to start from scratch. The rebuilding project that should have started two seasons ago and now be well underway, needs another quick fix.
Earlier, Bordeaux’s post-Urios inter-regnum period continued with a fourth Top 14 win in a row. They climbed to a provisional third in the table with a 23-15 victory at home over revelation side of the season, Bayonne.
Brive’s new coach Patrice Collazo insisted Saturday’s match at home to his former club Toulon was not a special game. “I understand that it raises a lot of issues, but it’s not special for my players. It’s not their story,” he insisted.
Tell that to the fans, who would have celebrated long into the night as Brive won 26-17 to claim their third victory in a row and climb further away from Perpignan – and to within two points of 12th-placed Pau.
Sebastien Piqueronies’ side’s poor form continued – they haven’t won in four in the Top 14 – as they lost 12-20 at home to Lyon, who ended a three-match losing run of their own; while Stade Francais remain on Toulouse’s coat-tails after a 26-7 win over Castres, whose away hoodoo continues, at Stade Jean Bouin.
La Rochelle ended an eight-match losing streak dating back to 2019 against a Toulouse side who had rested key players ahead of the Champions Cup return next week, with a bulldozing 30-7 win at a rain-soaked Stade Marcel Deflandre. Ex-Worcester backrow Kyle Hatherall scored the decisive final try just before the final whistle.
Tonight, eight-placed Montpellier and fifth-placed Racing 92 close out the 15th of 26 rounds of the regular season at the GGL Stadium.
