THE splendid Samuel Marques – 35 but still going strong and mulling coming out of international retirement – has been declared the ProD2 player of the season for 202324. Marques skippered Beziers to third place in the ProD2 and managed to squeeze in 25 appearances despite being otherwise engaged at the World Cup in the early part of the season. The canny scrum-half kicked 233 points and glided in for seven tries but mere statistics do scant justice to his marshalling of his troops
Perhaps the one surprise of the Midi Olympique awards night is that his Portuguese countryman and Beziers team-mate Raffaele Storti was not nominated for the award despite claiming a ProD2 record of 21 tries despite missing the first two months at the World Cup and the last month through injury. The only explanation would seem that him being a long term loan player from Top 14 outfit Stade de France.
The other main winners on the night were Antoine Dupont, who bagged the Top 14 player of the season and the France international player of the season awards, while Pau and France U20 World Cup winner form 2023 Theo Attissogbe was declared the revelation of the year after some eye popping displays at full-back.
The now retired Mathieu Raynal was referee of the year and Fiji‘s Peniasi Dakuwaqa was deemed the scorer of the season’s best try, a remarkable individual 120m effort for Stade against Racing which started deep in his own in goal area.
