France set to rock with the best league in the world

PETER JACKSON

THE MAN TRULY IN THE KNOW

French flair: La Rochelle may be champions of Europe but they finished fifth in their league

PICTURE: Getty Images

The best league on the planet kicks off again this week, one where the competition is such that Europe’s champion team failed to make the domestic top four.

La Rochelle’s unusual status – No. 1 in Europe, No. 5 in France – is only one reason why the Top 14 bursts out of the starting blocks this weekend into a league of its own. Only a French team could beat the best across the continent and then finish their domestic marathon behind four other French teams.

In the national play-offs, the Champions’ Cup champions lost to their immediate predecessors, Toulouse. They then lost to Castres who, in turn, lost to Montpellier.

And who should be first up at the Stade Marcel Deflandre next Saturday? Why none other than Philippe Saint-Andre’s French champions, a fixture guaranteed to generate passion plus at the start of a 12-month journey to the World Cup.

When Les Maritimes staged a final dress rehearsal on their patch of the Bay of Biscay the other night, there wasn’t an empty seat to be found for love nor money in the Atlantic port which Ronan O’Gara has transformed into a gallic version of what Thomond Park used to be.

All 16,000 seats had been sold for Thursday night’s joust with Stade Francais, standard practice for Top 14 fixtures but never for a friendly of any sort, let alone a pre-season one.

In their enthusiastic cheerleading of the English Premiership, BT Sport acclaimed the league as “the best in the world”. It wasn’t then and it most certainly isn’t now.

How can a league ban relegation, leave every aspiring Championship banging on a locked door and still keep a straight face about being the best? The Top 14 embraces promotion and relegation as a fundamental principle not to be desecrated by moneymen anxious to protect their investment.

“The big names still turn out more often than their Irish and Welsh counterparts”

Nor are any of the 14 in danger of going bust, at least not before the season begins. At close of business on Friday, there were no reports to suggest that the Gallic elite included anyone teetering on the brink a la Worcester and Wasps.

Despite some of their number being owned by seriously big hitters, none bigger than Mohed Altrad, the billionaire behind Montpellier and the France national team, the Top 14 dispenses a surprisingly high level of equality.

If it’s egalitarianism you’re after, look no further than France. Over the last eight seasons, seven different teams – Toulon, Stade Francis,

Racing, Clermont, Castres, Toulouse, Montpellier – have paraded the ultimate domestic trophy, the gigantic Bouclier de Brennus. England’s club champions over the same period have been restricted to four – Leicester, Harlequins, Exeter, Saracens.

Post-Covid, attendances are booming. It takes a lot to out-support Leicester but Bordeaux did it comfortably last season, topping 26,000 for the majority of their home matches and filling the place to its 32,500 brim on three occasions. It also helps that the big names still turn out for their clubs far more often than their Irish and Welsh counterparts in the United Rugby Championship.

Antoine Dupont found the time, and the desire, to play 17 times for Toulouse in last season’s Top 14. Romain NTamack, his Test and club partner, played 18 times. Owen Farrell managed ten Championship appearances for Saracens.

Jonny Sexton made four for Leinster in the URC. That was not his call but his employer’s, the IRFU. Their raison d’etre does extend beyond Team Ireland to their provinces excelling in Europe but, as a general rule of thumb, it most certainly does not extend to wintry nights in South Wales.

That isn’t about to change. Neither will the Welsh regional quartet’s losing fight for more funding nor the demoralising effect on their thinning crowds weary of being expected to dance to television’s anti-social tune…