Racing 23 - 12 Toulon

First, my apologies, this post is a little Toulon, but I didn't have time to shorten it.


And so we survive, my season continues, our season continues. Sunday afternoon was a joy to watch from the stand as we took Toulon apart. The scoreline doesn’t reflect our dominance and the pressure we had them under. After the first 10 minutes I turned to the person sitting next to me and we agreed there was no way we would lose.

(I was ruled out by the club doctor on Friday morning, I wouldn’t have been much use on the pitch anyway, injection or otherwise. I'm highly relieved that decision has been proved right.)

It was a victory that was probably helped by spending the previous 24 hours in each other’s company. We set off in the bus at lunchtime on Saturday and arrived at the ground at around 6.30 pm, it was an epically dull journey. I have said it often, the Paris-Lyon journey is not the prettiest. We did the team run and then had a barbecue. I played many roles throughout the weekend but Saturday was mainly assistant to Dominique, father of one of our props, tee man, water man, kit man and to top off the list, commander-in-chief of the barbecue. So I pottered around, aiding him in his manly activities, fetching water, making it look like I was doing something.

Then came the petanque. “Do you have petanque in Scotland?” they asked. “Yes, but it’s not the national sport like it is here”. As I begun to get the hang of it, they became more worried, their questions became more piercing. Those who know petanque will know that you are either a placer or a ‘tirer’. A placer places the boule with skill and precision and the ‘tirer’ comes in with equal precision but firing the boule so fast that it knocks others out of the way.

I am a placer, that is my calling. I explained that I put this down to years of experience in the sport of carpet bowls and that the last time I lost I ruined Christmas, so they knew I wasn't messing about. Despite the threat of broken toes, a good evening was had by all and we headed the further 6km to the Hotel Ambiance.

‘Ambiance’ is a very non-committal way of describing it; there are good ambiances and slightly sinister ones. When the neon strip that ran round the hotel turned from green to blue and settled on red, the whole place looked like a brothel. It served our purpose well though.

I watched a light shake off the legs in the morning, yet more petanque and then a pre-match meal followed. Everyone was very anxious, full of energy, bouncing off the suspect walls of the ‘Ambiance’. So we played UNO. I hadn’t played since I was a wee lad, so I told them, so they re-explained. My consistent rule-breaking and forgetting to say UNO at the right time lead me to pack it in and go and do witty interviews on the camera instead.

For I was the cameraman and I took my role very seriously. I had visions of ‘Living with the Lions’ type fame to come. I didn’t film in the pre-match meeting though, it was too tense. Shirts were handed out individually as cheeks were kissed. The coach then asked me to say a few words. Yikes. You might remember he did this at training once and I failed. But yesterday, I cleared my throat and got out some coherent phrases that did enough to warrant a round of applause from my team-mates. I had to stop myself becoming very emotional.

My main contribution to the day seems to have been the moment when I filmed a girl face-planting as she walked up the steps in the stand. During a break in play I was filming around the stand, taking in some of the atmosphere and then, right in front of me, she trips over a bin and crashes to the floor.

We scored 2 tries off turnover ball in a purple patch mid way through the first half from which the rouge et noir never recovered. We lost the second half 3-0 but were always in control. And so, at the end, Toulon did what every self-respecting southern rugby team does having just lost, they started the brawl to end all brawls. It was like a perverted version of the ’74 Lions’ ‘99’ call. Our boys were getting hit from behind and all sorts. Of course it descended into total mayhem, the stand emptied to the side of the pitch, some Toulon fans jumped the fence and joined in. Total carnage. It wasn’t like the Stade Francais fight which seemed legitimate, a fierce rivalry in action. These Toulonnais were simply pissed off they’d been dominated all afternoon so fancied a scrap. We took the moral high ground, called them disgraceful animals and celebrated with an almighty chasse a l’ours. Some of the lads delighted in finding a golf buggy at the side of the pitch and once all showered and changed, decided to go for a spin before they got called back. They thought they might have just made it to Paris... 

In the next round we (and that includes me) will play Brive in Chateauroux. I’m training very little this week, still trying to get this ankle back to something like normal. It should be 4 weeks off, I’ll be playing inside 2 so it’s not going to be perfect but there’s no way I’m missing out from here to the end.