Top 14 – In La Rochelle, the symbolic return of Cyril Baille

Beyond the gigantic turnover made by the Toulouse staff with a view to the future trip to Durban for this match in La Rochelle, the main information of the composition concocted by Ugo Mola necessarily lies in the great return of Cyril Baille, six months and two weeks after his serious injury (fracture of the fibula associated with a total rupture of the ligaments of the left ankle) suffered in the semi-final. Obviously good news for Stade Toulouse, which is sometimes in difficulty this season in the collective test of strength, and why not in the medium term for the XV of France.

Returning to the extended group during the trip to Exeter then the reception at the Stade Français, Cyril Baille will thus resume the thread of his career in an ultra symbolic way, a handful of days after the New Year, and especially against the opponent who He was affected in the semi-final, during which he was unable to recover from a double tackle by the Skelton-Favre duo. Enough to make this meeting a match apart, after months of rowing to regain his physical integrity and a form worthy of the name. “At 31, this fourth serious injury was a real shock, he recently confided at the microphone of Canal +. It made me click on food, on my work, on lots of things.” Logical, necessarily logical, if we remember that the excess weight accumulated by Baille after the period of post-World Cup mourning had caused a lot of ink to flow during the last Tournament, and must inevitably be perceived as one of the underlying reasons for this latest blow…

“This injury was a real shock”

This is why, now at the age of 31, the player trained at Lannemezan has no time to waste. And if he wants to realize his dream of being crowned world champion with his friends Antoine Dupont, Julien Marchand, Anthony Jelonch or Gregory Alldritt, Baille has no other choice but to seriously give himself the means to do so. and off the field. To which he seems more than determined… “When I got injured, the first thing I thought about was going to do some tests to find out how long I had it. On the ground, I thought about that. I understood straight away that it was serious and on the way back in the ambulance, I made a plan in my head.” The strength, as we have seen, of a certain habit. “I have experience with injuries, and this is the second most serious of my career. The worst was the one I suffered on one knee, including tearing of the patellar tendon. J I was 23 years old, and the surgeon clearly told me that I had a one in four chance of returning to rugby. Mentally, I had it tough, but I got over it. As Cyril Baille will start in La Rochelle, in the strange context of a largely reshuffled team, the first day of the rest of his career.