Between Camille Chat and Racing 92, the love story lasted twelve years. It ends today in a way that is as sudden as it is brutal, leaving both of us with an immense feeling of waste…
The breakup is brutal, sudden. So we told you this Monday morning on our site, Rugbyramathat Racing 92 and Camille Chat, at the club for twelve years, had decided to leave by mutual agreement. “Even if one agreed more than the other”now quips a source close to the matter. The facts? They now suggest that the international hooker (29 years old and 33 caps) arrived at training on December 16 after participating in a festive evening and in a state supposedly unfit for rugby. He fiercely defends it. The club, for its part, judged that it was one prank too many, “Camtar” (the “truck”, its nickname in Racing) having already been lectured by its leaders in 2023 after having cracked the orbital floor of its Fijian teammate Vinaya Habosi, who we know was not blameless either, that spring evening when the Ile-de-France residents were on training in Valencia (Spain) to prepare for the final sprint of the season of Top 14…
A fortnight ago and after the story we are talking about, the English manager Stuart Lancaster apparently felt that between him and the number 1 of his hookers, the story could no longer continue. In the process, negotiations began between the player's advisors and the Hauts-de-Seine club, leading to this divorce that no one could have imagined just a few weeks ago. At Racing, Camille Chat was part of the furniture. He even embodied the face of the Ile-de-France entity to such an extent that last year, when Racing relocated several of its championship matches to Auxerre, he also did so to fill his child from Yonne with happiness, this one having also been celebrated as an Olympic champion by the 18,000 spectators at Abbé-Deschamps. In fact, Camille Chat's popularity among the Racing public is such that the Ile-de-France leaders know the discontent they are exposing themselves to by soon formalizing the divorce. For a long time, the hooker was part of a supporters' association for, he said one day, “reciprocate as best as possible the love they give me. I participate in their evenings, their events… I find it normal. These people follow us all year round, rain or shine. I don't want there to be any distance between them and us, as can be the case in football, for example.”
The XV of France turned its back on him
Quite a character, Camille Chat. Characteristic for some and so endearing for others, he arrived in Hauts-de-Seine as a teenager without knowing much about rugby and its customs. “When I was littlehe told us in 2021my family wasn't really into rugby. The day I arrived as a professional, I didn't know even not who the players were around me. It was special, yes…” The day Dimitri Szarzewski put away his crampons in 2018, “Camtar” put on Yet the seven-league boots abandoned by the “tsar” and quickly made his mark among the pros until becoming one of the protagonists of our noble Top 14 weekends. “Every kidhe told us againjHowever, he wanted to join GIGN. I even found out about competitive exams from the college guidance counselor at the time. I was hot, yes… […] I have a lot of admiration for these people, actually. Physically, you have to be a machine to join this service and mentally, you have to be even stronger. These guys are warriors.”
Frankly ? The news of Camille Chat, whose physical predispositions and taste for combat make her one of the most beautiful athletes of the single group, in many ways makes us think of an immense waste. We have therefore not forgotten anything of what was said, in our little world, about the colossus when the 2019 World Cup ended: we then wrote, here and elsewhere, that “Camtar”, Guilhem's understudy Guirado in Japan was now considered by Fabien Galthié and his staff as the holder of the position in the France team. As such, the person even confided to us a few years ago: “I am a competitor and I have the ambition to be a starter in the French team. It would be a huge honor, a great source of pride. […] For four years, I remained in the shadow of Guilhem Guirado in the selection. But I knew what my level was at the time, what my margin for improvement was: I also knew the importance of Guilhem (Guirado) in the group. All of this gave me time to grow. And it was at the World Cup that I really felt that I was now ready to start a match with the Blues.” This was not the case and very quickly, Julien Marchand followed in Guirado's footsteps. In the eyes of the Blues staff, the explosion of Peato Mauvaka and Pierre Bourgarit then ended up downgrading the Racing hooker. Until Camille Chat completely disappeared from the radar, his competitor Janick Tarrit, to whom he is very close, even passing in front of him during the last Tricolores tour in South America…
He had played 188 matches with Racing 92
In the coming days, Camille Chat – whose contract with Racing ran until 2027 and who is currently training with a physical trainer whom he pays himself – will therefore leave the apartment he occupies in the Paris region. From what we know, his profile does not leave anyone indifferent in the Top 14 and the player has already been approached by several residents of the single pool. After all, and even if he is less strong than he was previously, the international hooker remains an ox in closed melee, an effective thrower and a real brick breaker, when he decides to sound the charge in his characteristic style, with the head fifty centimeters from the ground and the ball under the arm. Therefore, will he finish the current season at another club? Or will he wait until next summer to move on to a new challenge? As of today, everything is open. But if Camille Chat's future in the Top 14 is still unclear, we are however certain that “Camtar”, 188 matches played under the Ile-de-France colors, will not reach the 200 units as he had always dreamed of. And it's not just other people's fault…
