Carbonel will add the flair for Stade
James Harrington
French column
Last season, Stade Francais finished second in the Top 14 to qualify directly for the semi-finals – where an after-the-hooter conversion miss meant defeat to losing finalists Bordeaux.
That marked the end of a campaign founded, built and fortressed on Paul Gustard’s no pasarán defence.
The attack, under Morgan Parra – with no small amount of input, no doubt, from sporting director Laurent Labit after he shipped up at Stade Jean Bouin post-World Cup – was hit-and-miss, at best. If fans of the Paris club are being honest, it was more miss than hit at that, despite one or two highlight-reel individual efforts.
Even those spectaculars could not paper over the reality cracks. And, let’s be honest, in historic rugby parlance, spectacular is as Stade Francais does. Or, at least, did.
It’s not as if the club didn’t have the firepower in their backline last season. It just couldn’t fire consistently. Sometimes it barely fired at all.
The run to the semi-finals muted the grumbles to a certain extent, but could not silence them completely. Winning isn’t enough at Stade, hasn’t been for years. Winning – or losing – with style has been everything since the days of conspicuous excess under Max Guazzini.
There is, however, more than a hint of change in the air.
Recruitment suggested that change was in the air. Fly-half Louis Carbonel, freshly arrived from Montpellier and for all his travails in recent years, is one of the most innovative, attacking 10s France has produced. His flaw is that he sometimes plays slightly too far ahead of himself – not to mention his team-mates.
Portugal wing phenom Raffaele Costa Storti scored a record 21 ProD2 tries last season while on loan at Beziers. Ex-Biarritz fullback Joe Jonas was on more than one Top 14 club radar before opting for the bright lights of the big city. And Samuel Ezeala, from Clermont via Pau, has pace and power to burn. Great try expectations are high.
Compared to previous seasons, recruitment at Stade this year has been more, well, targeted, with only seven senior arrivals, including Storti, and 12 departures.
But, add the new recruits to the likes of possible future France fullback Leo Barre, who signed a contract extension this week committing himself to the club until 2029, as well as wingers Lester Etien and Peniasi Dakuwaqa – about the only player in the club who could outpace ridiculous backrow Sekou Macalou last season – and Jeremy Ward and Joe Marchant controlling midfield, a season tactically like the last one would be criminal. Sacrilegious, almost.
Which probably explains why sporting director Labit, who took something of a day-to-day coaching and tactical backseat last season because he had some club restructuring work to do, is going to be more hands-on this year.
Expect, therefore, to see a much sharper attacking edge from Stade Francais this year, centred around Carbonel. That should suit All Black scrum-half Brad Weber much better than last season’s methods that were better executed by the now retired Rory Kockott.
Stade Francais open their new campaign on September 7 away to the side that beat them in last season’s semi-final.
They’ve had a little more time than Bordeaux to prep for the new run – and, while the first run-out, even after a pre-season friendly or two is generally far from perfect, expect rather more attractive rugby from the players in pink this season. Because, on paper at least, it looks a lot like Stade Francais have got their much-missed razzle-dazzle back.
About time, too.
- A minute’s applause ahead of the opening matches of the season at all levels of the game in France has been organised to pay tribute to France and Toulouse under-18 player Medhi Narjissi, who was swept away by waves during a seaside recovery session in South Africa days before the International U18 Series was due to kick off. The France squad withdrew from the tournament and returned home following the incident, and an investigation has been launched.
