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Watch: Russell sends 109kg France lock Woki flying backwards

Finn Russell of Bath talks with Antoine Gibert of Racing 92 following the Investec Champions Cup match between Bath Rugby and Racing 92 at Recreation Ground on January 14, 2024 in Bath, England. (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Finn Russell is known for many things, but massive tackles has never been one of them – on any player, let alone Test locks.

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But the Bath flyhalf surprised everyone at the Rec on Sunday when he smashed Racing 92 lock Cameron Woki onto his back. The most surprised of all in the Investec Champions Cup encounter, however, was Woki himself, who clearly did not expect it from his former teammate.

Russell played alongside the France lock last season at Racing 92, where he probably did not build a reputation for producing hits like he did. The 109kg lock’s eyes must have lit up when he broke through the Bath defence and saw the Scotland No10 rushing across the field to cover, but he produced a textbook tackle.

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Alex Sanderson on Sale Sharks’ challenging week in SA

Video Spacer

Alex Sanderson on Sale Sharks’ challenging week in SA

Ben Spencer did help Russell out slightly in this situation by slowing Woki down slightly, and preventing him to prepare for the hit from the Scot, and credit must also be given to the Frenchman for being able to keep the ball alive by popping it up from the floor. The camera panned to him soon after, where he could only smile in disbelief over what happened.

Watch the tackle here:

This short passage of play sums up how the Champions Cup encounter went- Racing looked very threatening at times and were able to carve through the Bath defence on a number of occasions, but the West Country outfit were able to stand fast and hold on to a 29-25 victory.

It was not only Russell’s defence that stood out in this performance though, as he was pivotal in overturning a 22-8 deficit in the second-half as Bath kept their unbeaten record in Europe this season intact and secured their place in the knockout stages with a round remaining. Racing, meanwhile are winless this season, and must beat Cardiff this weekend and rely on other results to progress.

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J
JW 3 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).

Number Of Clubs:

1526

Registered+Unregistered Players:

651146

Number of Referees:

3460

Pre-teen Male Players:

320842

Pre-teen Female Player:

4522

Teen Male Player:

199213

Teen Female Player:

4906

Senior Male Player:

113174

Senior Female Player:

8489

Total Male Player:

633229

Total Female Player:

17917


So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.

The total number of clubs remains consistent, with a marginal increase of 1% from 1,161 to 1,167. 8.1.

A comparative analysis of verified data for 2022 and 2023 highlights a marginal decline of 1% in the number of female players, declining from 6,801 to 6,723. Additionally, the total number of players demonstrates an 8% decrease, dropping from 96,172 to 88,828.

So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).


https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.


The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.


In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.

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