QWe’ve come a long way for the RC Villeneuve fifteen players. The epic final stages which close the 2023-2024 financial year are the icing on the cake for President Colombini’s club, which is enjoying a high-level sporting journey. The Villeneuvois who can pride themselves on having brought the practice of “fifteen” back to the center of a bastide where rugby at thirteen has its roots in an almost century-old history.
“It forced us to look at what was happening around us, to build the club differently”
Workforce tripled in three years
This Sunday (3 p.m.), it is the RCV XV players who are 80 minutes away from a match for the title of French Federal 3 champion, just two seasons after discovering this division. On condition, however, that the Ariège obstacle of Saverdun is overcome: “There are only four clubs left,” says Jérôme Colombini, “and no one is hiding their ambitions. » The Shield, not to name it, would be the reward for the revolution led since 2020 and the Covid crisis by the club’s management team and volunteers. “The first team journey is pure pleasure for everyone,” adds the strong man of the RCV XV, “from the mini-chicks to the club’s cooks. This is the result of a whole puzzle put in place for several years. »
Long in the shadow of the thirteen players, the rugby players of the late Club Athlétique Villeneuvois also had to find a place within a municipal associative fabric where the sporting offer is more than diversified, from the table tennis players embodied by the PPC Villeneuve to the footballers of the Lot Valley, including the basketball players of Villeneuve BC, to only talk about these disciplines. “It forced us to look at what was happening around us, to build the club differently, to do more to exist and interest families and children,” continues Jérôme Colombini. Work with schoolchildren, middle schoolers and high school students which has made it possible, among other things, to triple the numbers at the rugby school in three years to reach, this season, 150 small licensees and thus digest the end of the rapprochement with the Castelmoron club for these young categories established at the start of this season.
The supporters are there
But the RCV XV is indeed writing its history and feeling the excitement around blood and gold. During the quarter-final against Pays de Meaux, Sunday June 16, the supporters traveled to the distant Chevaliers de Châteauroux stadium, the ground designated for the match. “There must have been a hundred of them,” rejoiced the president, “I can only thank them. » Before that, during the 20th anniversary evening of the RCV
With the accession to the sixth level of French rugby and a Myre-Mory stadium brought up to date, the 2024-2025 season promises to transform the test.
