ASM Clermont Auvergne 27 - 22 Racing Métro 92

Before every match this season I have felt a strange feeling that made me not want to play at all, to run and hide in a hole. But I didn’t feel it at all on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. The ipod was charged, the McVities^© Digestives were packed and I was ready for the 5 hour bus journey. And what a bus: a double decker coach and a fine looking piece of kit with which to head into the Massif Central.

The feeling that we were climbing was tangible as bodies became strewn round the bus, in the aisle, across seats and on the stairs. We had lunch in a road-side restaurant. This was no Little Chef, this was road-side, French style. I ate far too much.

The first sign that Clermont was approaching was the sight of smoke and chimneys. This was not a place to go for your holidays, but it is clearly a place that breeds very hard, very intelligent rugby. I'd love to report that the smell of Michelin tyres hung heavy in the air but that would be going too far, however industrial the place was. We got off to a poor start, our failure to deal with restarts and then silly offsides left us 3-0. An exchange of penalties and a scruffy drop goal (as per...) from me left us about level. Then we really turned it on, stretching them wide, finding holes and eventually going over. We were 11-16 up at half-time and feeling good, we’d have the wind in the 2^nd.

As so often happens to a team winning at half-time, we got blitzed at the start of the 2^nd half. A flurry of 11 points in 10 minutes left us all looking at each other wondering what happened. I don’t think we are the most mature of teams. What we should have done was stayed calm, reverted to playing like we had been in the 1^st half, but some heads went down as the chests of the Clermontois got puffed out. But it would be scrummaging that would decide this match. We were only 4 points behind, but that’s a huge margin when we were getting turned over in every scrum. We had the weight advantage but as Telfer knew, smaller can be better... One Clermont prop looked like a direct descendent of the Pro team’s Georgian prop Davit Zirakashvili and the hooker was a mini Mario Ledesma. These were all thoughts I was having mid match, which says alot about a stand-off who spent most of the second half with his jaw on the floor at the power of this scrummage.

The match ended with me holding my nerve amongst a chorus of whistles and boos (from the parents) to nail a final penalty which gave us the losing bonus point. Scant consolation. 

We got the hairdryer treatment in the changing room from the coaches, and were then left alone to discuss it as a team. Our captain lead the way, laying down his reasons – a lack of focus in training since the departure of the aforementioned forwards coach, inviting others to add their views. No one was saying anything, and I had views, this way my chance! Quick, formulate some sort of sentence. So I ploughed in and held the room’s attention for about half a minute with my thoughts about training and our standards and what needs to change for Stade Francais. This was one of my proudest moments in the last 4 months, without a doubt.

The bus back was spent with me helping one Reichel prop with his English homework, which was a great way of getting to know him better. He, a Muslim, talked at length about the racism he had experienced in his year playing rugby in Aix-en-Provence. I then mirrored his homework, a presentation on myself (classic), in French! It was fun just munching away on Percy Pigs, chatting with these guys. I managed to give a short politics lesson on the United Kingdom/Scotland distinction and a history one too. I also spoke to them of Leith, portrayed it as a proud industrial area stereotyped with prostitution and played them what I described as Leith’s national anthem, ‘Sunshine on Leith’...obviously. They loved it.

It was really an excellent day. Of course it’s frustrating to come away from a place like Clermont with a loss like that – as was the case in Bourgoin – but personally, I learnt a lot, most of it about appreciating good props. The bus back was 5 hours to remember, as was my post match intervention. I’ll never forget the day I lost in Clermont-Ferrand. Next thought, bring on Stade Francais...



Note the similarity in colours between the company and the club. This is a company town! And I'll point out the similarity between the Michelin man and one of their props...