the essential
The outcome of the French second division championship will be played out this Saturday, June 8, on the lawn of the usual Toulouse players’ den. The winning team will be promoted to the first division, the loser will have a second chance of promotion, at home in a play-off against Montpellier on June 16.
History or revenge? Vannes can raise Brittany into the elite of French rugby for the first time, provided that this Saturday, June 8, in the Pro D2 final, it breaks the dynamic of Grenoblois, who were not spared the blows of fate.
When it joined the second division in 2016, the Morbihan club was a bit of an “anomaly” in the national rugby landscape, recognizes its president Olivier Cloarec. “Everyone promised us hell, explaining to us that we weren’t going to make it, that we were going to go down very quickly,” he explains.
Eight years and three semi-finals of Pro D2 (2019, 2021 and 2023) later, the RCV of the irremovable coach Jean-Noël Spitzer, long at the top of the ranking this season, no longer makes anyone laugh and is only ’80 minutes from a historic rise to the Top 14.
The Bretons’ opponent, FC Grenoble, is a more traditional bastion of the French championship, which it won in 1954. Relegated in 2019 to the antechamber of the elite, the Isère club is driven by a double feeling revenge after his defeat in the final against Oyonnax (14-3) last year, already in Toulouse.
Vannes-Grenoble, kick-off 5:30 p.m.
