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Masked Oval
Published on
Jan 6, 2025 at 6:21 p.m.
This week, all Top 14 matches were draws. You now know the rule: if it sucks it doesn't deserve a report, and instead you have a catch-all article with lots of GIFs and questionable turns of phrase since why make the effort anyway, You're just here for the pictures, right?
The match of the weekend: La Rochelle Boxing Club – Toulouse U18
Against all expectations, we had a real shock from the Top 14 on Saturday evening. We can thank the young and courageous Toulouse team, but also the always flamboyant inferiority complex of Stade Rochelais, which loses all its means as soon as it sees 5 stars on a red and black jersey.
In the big game of “who will take his red against Toulouse”, Tolu Latu was able to respond in the absence of the usual favorite, Will Skelton. Unfortunately, his effort was poorly rewarded by the refereeing, as was that of Reda Wardi.
It was therefore at 15 that the Maritimes were forced to finish the match, and honestly, they could have played at 22 which they probably would not have managed to score otherwise than on a pick and go. Even in the register of the most basic jamming, Ronan O'Gara's men were surpassed, being carried away by a ball carried formed by barely pubescent teenagers.
Valentin Delpy, a sort of regen of Léo Berdeu, could have been the hero of the evening after hitting a drop full of mischief. But instead of the humiliating draw, the Rochelais preferred the discouraging victory, thanks to a penalty from Antoine Hastoy on the siren. We salute the composure of the La Rochelle flyhalf, especially since this is his first positive action in around two years.
After this match, two questions remain: Is La Rochelle such a boring city that Marcel-Deflandre has been full every weekend for 10 years? Thanks to his more than solid 30 minutes at the post, has Ange Capuozzo become the best Italian scrum half of all time?
Player of the week: Louis Bielle-Biarrey
When you were little, you may have experienced your first rugby excitement in front of the exploits of Saint-André, Bernat-Salles, Ntamack, Dominici and others Clerc, Rougerie or Heymans. Being a winger meant being the cool guy in the film, the one who arrives at school with a leather jacket and a moped in the morning, and who meets all the girls in the evening at the party. Then, from the 2010s, we saw Yoann Huget, Adrien Planté, Rémy Grosso and Benjamin Fall parade, and immediately we lost a little glamor. Limit, it was better to be second row than winger, this position reserved for the team's loser who doesn't know how to do anything except run straight.
Fortunately, everything will soon change, and children will be able to dream again thanks to Louis Bielle-Biarrey! Well, there was already Damian Penaud, but with his labrador appearance affected by attention deficit disorder, he was still a little less commercially successful.
LBB is legs of fire, disconcerting supports, but also the physique of the young French lover in Emily in Paris who drinks his coffee shirtless in the morning when he wakes up in his apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower even though he earns the minimum wage. Against Stade Français, he shone again with his completely cheated action: the kick to follow at the back of the field and the initiation of rocket mode.
To complete the great Bordeaux performance, he also scored a double at the end of the match after having crucified poor Laloi.
The MUSCUUUU point of the weekend
If you were rich, you would probably devote a room to your most regressive pleasures: a table football, an arcade machine with Street Fighter 2 Turboa piece of furniture to display your Lego collection or even a workshop to build a life-size trebuchet. Maxime Machenaud has other passions. Only one, in fact. Thanks to Canal +, we learned that Bruce Wayne from Bordeaux had a Batcave built at home dedicated solely to sweat and suffering, which allows him to have at 37 the body that you never have managed to get to 25. Perhaps he just lacks targets to practice passing but hey, rugby is incidental.
Other images from the weekend
Goodbye of the week
What would a week be like without news related to the alcoholism of a professional rugby player? We learned this morning that after several drunken “slip-ups”, Racing 92 and Camille Chat had separated by mutual agreement, which is the term we usually use to say “take your check and get lost very far away, you really pissed us off.”
A sad end for such a promising player who seems to have lost himself in recent years, between repeated injuries and disappointing performances. Could there therefore be a link between physical problems and poor lifestyle? Unfortunately I am not a doctor, so ask Serge Simon.
The rest, you know it. Signing in Biarritz, Nevers, Angoulême or another club means a slow descent into oblivion. No, don't talk to me about the MHR: showing up drunk at training is clearly below the club's requirements, you need at least a criminal record.
To end this article, I decided to compile my best Camicha GIFs, as in a tribute sequence to the people who died during the Caesars.
In these beautiful images, I leave you, the faller from Vannes tells me that it is time to shut my mouth. See you next week!
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