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Laporte issues lengthy Facebook post after being taken into police custody

(Photo by Franck Pennant/AFP via Getty Images)

France rugby federation president Bernard Laporte has provided a response after being taken into police custody on Tuesday. The 56-year-old is being questioned alongside Montpellier owner Mohed Altrad for his links with the Altrad Group amid allegations of favouring the Top 14 club when sanctions were handed to them in 2017 for irregularities.

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Laporte, who also serves as vice-chairman of World Rugby, is hoping to be re-elected as president of France rugby in ten days time.

In a lengthy message on Facebook, Laporte addressed the situation he finds himself in, describing it as a “rather nauseating electoral strategy” and emphasising that this is only a “preliminary investigation”.

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Former Toulon star Steffon Armitage guests on the latest episode of the Le French Rugby podcast

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Former Toulon star Steffon Armitage guests on the latest episode of the Le French Rugby podcast

The former France rugby head coach insisted he will not be deterred from his campaign to be re-elected, saying: “I say it loud and clear: we will fight, resist, and revolt.

“I’m very respectful of the work of justice and I have been asking for months that this file be completed as quickly as possible. But the method is revolting. The prosecutor’s numerous refusals concerning the postponement of this hearing are unworthy of the justice of a country like France.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/bernard-laporte/courrier-aux-clubs/2816407082017763/

“When justice gets mixed up with politics, both are weakened. I will face this ordeal with strength and serenity. I have no responsibility whatsoever in this case, the contents of which I do not know.”

He also directed his message to amateur clubs in France, saying: “They are trying by incredible means to steal this election from you, to steal your vote for which I fought.”

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The post was signed off with an impassioned rallying call by the Frenchman. He said: “To those who have other designs, to those who think they can abandon amateur clubs to their fate, to those who think that the XV of France is not important, they will always find me on their way and they will have to answer for their actions.

“I am more determined than ever to defend this ideal. We must fight and resist. On October 3 at noon, it will be another page of victories for French rugby that will be written, because our team will win. The future is bright. I count on you as much as you can count on me.”

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AllyOz 23 hours ago
Does the next Wallabies coach have to be an Australian?

I will preface this comment by saying that I hope Joe Schmidt continues for as long as he can as I think he has done a tremendous job to date. He has, in some ways, made the job a little harder for himself by initially relying on domestic based players and never really going over the top with OS based players even when he relaxed his policy a little more. I really enjoy how the team are playing at the moment.


I think Les Kiss, because (1) he has a bit more international experience, (2) has previously coached with Schmidt and in the same setup as Schmidt, might provide the smoothest transition, though I am not sure that this necessarily needs to be the case.


I would say one thing though about OS versus local coaches. I have a preference for local coaches but not for the reason that people might suppose (certainly not for the reason OJohn will have opined - I haven't read all the way down but I think I can guess it).


Australia has produced coaches of international standing who have won World Cups and major trophies. Bob Dwyer, Rod Macqueen, Alan Jones, Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones. I would add John Connolly - though he never got the international success he was highly successful with Queensland against quality NZ opposition and I think you could argue, never really got the run at international level that others did (OJohn might agree with that bit). Some of those are controversial but they all achieved high level results. You can add to that a number of assistants who worked OS at a high level.


But what the lack of a clear Australian coach suggests to me is that we are no longer producing coaches of international quality through our systems. We have had some overseas based coaches in our system like Thorn and Wessels and Cron (though I would suggest Thorn was a unique case who played for Australia in one code and NZ in the other and saw himself as a both a NZer and a Queenslander having arrived here at around age 12). Cron was developed in the Australian system anyway, so I don't have a problem with where he was born.


But my point is that we used to have systems in Australia that produced world class coaches. The systems developed by Dick Marks, which adopted and adapted some of the best coaching training approaches at the time from around the world (Wales particularly) but focussed on training Australian coaches with the best available methods, in my mind (as someone who grew up and began coaching late in that era) was a key part of what produced the highly skilled players that we produced at the time and also that produced those world class coaches. I think it was slipping already by the time I did my Level II certificate in 2002 and I think Eddie Jones influence and the priorities of the executive, particularly John O'Neill, might have been the beginning of the end. But if we have good coaching development programmes at school and junior level that will feed through to representative level then we will have


I think this is the missing ingredient that both ourselves and, ironically, Wales (who gave us the bones of our coaching system that became world leading), is a poor coaching development system. Fix that and you start getting players developing basic skills better and earlier in their careers and this feeds through all the way through the system and it also means that, when coaching positions at all levels come up, there are people of quality to fill them, who feed through the system all the way to the top. We could be exporting more coaches to Japan and England and France and the UK and the USA, as we have done a bit in the past.


A lack of a third tier between SR and Club rugby might block this a little - but I am not sure that this alone is the reason - it does give people some opportunity though to be noticed and play a key role in developing that next generation of players coming through. And we have never been able to make the cost sustainable.


I don't think it matters that we have an OS coach as our head coach at the moment but I think it does tell us something about overall rugby ecosystem that, when a coaching appointment comes up, we don't have 3 or 4 high quality options ready to take over. The failure of our coaching development pathway is a key missing ingredient for me and one of the reasons our systems are failing.

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