Bordeaux-Bègles, which hoped to have its French reservists Maxime Lucu and Maxime Lamothe, this Saturday, November 23, in Vannes, during the tenth day of the Top 14 the day after the match against Argentina, takes the decision of the League to ban them from playing. The club even judges this decision “a bit surreal”.
Of the four Top 14 clubs (Clermont, Lyon, La Rochelle and UBB) which employ the five reservists of the Blues on Friday against Argentina, the Gironde club, with two players concerned, its captain and its vice-captain, is legitimately the most angry in particular against the arguments of the LNR.
In its decision taken on Wednesday, the League mentioned the agreement signed with the FFR on international players, according to which “28 players will be kept by the FFR (at the choice of the French team coach) until Sunday” during international match weeks.
She also pointed out the risk “unfairness between the clubs concerned”who could not all field the reserve players due to “of the programming schedule of the Top 14 match during the weekend”over which the clubs have no control. La Rochelle, Lyon and Clermont will play on Saturday at 4:30 p.m., UBB at 9:05 p.m. in Vannes.
“We are heavily impacted”
This second argument made the UBB jump. “I find it a bit strong to talk about a lack of fairness knowing that we are heavily impacted by these duplicates which are a particularity of French rugby”declared Gironde coach Christophe Laussucq at a press conference.
“The problem of fairness is flouted every year in French rugbycontinued the technician. There, there was a possibility of eliminating this lack of fairness and the opposite is happening and clubs are daring to complain. It's a bit like the world turned upside down. »
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“We just don't have the right to play our players, who are employed by us even though the French team has released them. I find it a bit surreal, obviously we are angry and there are clubs which have put pressure on the LNR and the LNR has visibly suffered this pressure. How to play Max Lucu and Max Lamothe (in Vannes) penalizes the French team? Who were we wronged besides us? »Laussucq took offense again.
