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Confirmed: Gustard for Stade along with 8 players including Parra

(Photo by Getty Images)

Ex-England assistant and former Harlequins boss Paul Gustard has been confirmed as a new assistant coach at Stade Francais, the French Top 14 team that has also announced eight new player signings – including Morgan Parra – and a second new assistant coach for the 2022/23 season. The exit of Gustard from Harlequins in January 2021 was quickly followed by the announcement that he would join Benetton as their URC defence coach for a three-year period, starting in 2021/22.

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However, despite declaring himself pleased with the level of improvement at the Italian club over the course of his first season in Treviso, Gustard has now opted to test himself in the Top 14 after deciding to become part of the staff in Paris under Gonzalo Quesada.

Gustard will be busy as the current season for Stade ended poorly last Sunday night, a 33-17 home defeat to Brive leaving them finishing in eleventh place on the table with just eleven wins in 26 outings. Their concession of 561 points over the course of the campaign was also the eleventh worst defensive record in the competition, with only bottom pair Biarritz and Perpignan conceding more points along with tenth place Pau.

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The Breakdown | Sky Sport NZ | Episode 16

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Stade tweeted: “The former assistant to Eddy Jones (sic) and sporting director of Harlequins joins us. Welcome to Paris Paul!”

The other coaching appointment is James Kent, who has been working in the Stade academy since 2019. He will now be in charge of the first-team skills. It will be a first-team squad with a very different complexion from the team that finished the season last weekend as eight new players were unveiled on Tuesday evening prior to a supporters evening at the club.

With the likes of Antoine Burban and Waisea Nayacalevu leaving, the star name arrival will be Morgan Parra, the 33-year-old former France scrum-half arriving from Clermont where he spent 13 years. Another back arriving is Montauban winger Stephane Ahmed while Sione Tui is returning from being on loan for two seasons at Carcassonne.

In the pack, Lyon’s Mickael Ivaldi and Lucas Peyresblanques of Biarritz – both hookers – were confirmed signings as were back-rowers Mathieu Hirigoyen, another recruit from Biarritz, Pau’s Giovanni Habel-Kueffner, Aurillac’s Giorgi Tsutskiridze and Toulon’s Julien Ory.

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It was October when Gustard enthusiastically spoke with RugbyPass about his new life in Italy away from London after exiting Harlequins. “We always wanted to try something abroad,” he said at the time. “We were looking at Japan or maybe the southern hemisphere and probably with the impact of covid and older relations and all the rest of it, being so far away from the UK turned us off those ideas and then it was Italy or France or staying in the UK.

“Since I have been to Treviso I have loved it and we have settled in so well, it’s such a welcoming place, a very social culture, very friendly people. They have made us feel very welcome, so it has been awesome. During the pandemic first time around last March (2020), I had a contract offer from Quins but you always see what is the right fit for you and your family.”

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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