Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

LONG READ Six Nations: How Bordeaux-Begles' buccaneers are bringing the fire to France

Six Nations: How Bordeaux-Begles' buccaneers are bringing the fire to France
3 weeks ago

The buccaneers of Bordeaux talk a lot about fire. How each one of their gilded athletes could ignite a spark which spreads across the field, kindling connections, growing in impetus and ultimately, combusting into a blazing inferno. Bordeaux-Begles are one of the finest attacking sides in the world and this is how they channel their creativity.

An absurd array of talent takes the stage each week at the rustic Chaban Delmas. Some reserved, others extroverted. Some paradoxical, others blissfully simple. Together, they blend a deadly cocktail of physical attributes, mental fortitude and collective harmony.

The cerebral Irishman, Noel McNamara, oversees the attack down in Aquitaine. A hugely respected coach, formerly of Leinster, North Harbour, the Sharks and Ireland’s successful Under-20s programme, he is a central part of their quest for a long-awaited Top 14 crown or European star on the maroon jersey.

Noel McNamara recently signed a new deal to remain part of the Bordeaux-Begles coaching staff until 2027 (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

“It’s not about looking around and saying ‘we’ve got x, y and z, let them off and see what happens’,” McNamara reflects. “It’s about developing our understanding together. It’s very much a relational attack; we work hard on trying to read each other and make the most of considerable talent.

“We built on that spark analogy a lot. All those sparks can come from different places and we want to build that roaring flame. That’s the thread connecting all of us.”

The Toulouse Galacticos grab the headlines as the great Six Nations jamboree heaves into view. Dupont, Ntamack, Ramos and the rest are the darlings of Europe right now. They belted Bordeaux in last year’s Top 14 final, but the boys from the southwest are resurgent – and plentiful. Six of them make Fabien Galthie’s wider squad. Two start in Friday’s curtain-raiser against Wales. A seventh, Romain Burros, their dashing full-back misses out, but nonplussed the All Blacks as a rookie international only two months ago.

Bordeaux-Begles sit proudly at the summit of the Top 14, locked on 51 points with Dupont’s conquerors. They have scored the most points and tries, averaging almost four of the latter per match. They have scored more from turnovers than any team in France (23 tries, six higher than the next best), and made the most line breaks at an eye-catching return of one every 16 carries.

You’re not coaching Matthieu Jalibert how to kick or Damian Penaud how to pass, you’re trying to coach them how to play in this team.

Those numbers swell from brilliant to staggering in the Champions Cup. Bordeaux dished out four thrashings with a combined haul of 217 points. They ran in 33 tries, averaged almost 16 line breaks per match and have won the most turnovers in the competition. When you consider their lethal transition attack, that’s a serious platform.

McNamara’s job is to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts, when the parts, as he puts it rather modestly, are ‘very significant’.

“You’re not coaching Matthieu Jalibert how to kick or Damian Penaud how to pass, you’re trying to coach them how to play in this team. Yes, maybe there are little bits and pieces you can help, but they are already at an incredibly high level. The players are the best assets and best at finding solutions.

“I need to ask the right questions to keep us moving forward together. Sometimes it will be disproving certain theories, sometimes giving the wrong solutions and figuring it out together. Success cannot be spoon-fed. The best teams, best players, best coaches work it out together and that would very much be the philosophy of what we’re trying to do.”

This devastating cocktail of skills, gumption and philosophy runs through the French squad. These are the Bordeaux rapiers on the Grand Slam trail.

Damian Penaud
Age:
28
Caps:
53
Tries:
36

In a golden age of wingers, at a time where Cheslin Kolbe and Kurt-Lee Arendse, Will Jordan and James Lowe, Duhan van der Merwe and Manny Feyi-Waboso are prowling international waters, Penaud might just be the finest gunslinger of the lot.

He scored three tries against Exeter Chiefs this month, then an eye-watering six when the Sharks came to Bordeaux a week later. This season, Penaud has 15 tries in 12 matches and averages a touchdown every 72 minutes. Mercifully for Wales, a ‘small muscle problem’ keeps him out of the opener.

Penaud is in white-hot form, but will miss the opening round of the Six Nations through injury (Photo by ROMAIN PERROCHEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

Penaud is steeped in rugby – his father Alain played fly-half for France – and McNamara sees that upbringing in his approach to the game.

“Phil Mickelson learned golf by watching his dad,” he says. “He is actually right-handed, but watching his dad was a mirror image, so he played left-handed by imitation. You look at examples of people who grew up in rugby and how much they learned by that process. For Damian, that process has been a long period of time. He doesn’t really get all the fuss, but it’s just understanding he’s been involved in rugby a long, long time from watching his dad.”

Penaud is widely reckoned to be a loose character. The effortless grace with which he performs the extraordinary suggests he could play with a Cuban cigar in one hand and a glass of Bordeaux red in the other. Against Exeter, he intercepted on his own 22 and galloped all the way to the line, before casually tossing a 20m pass inside for Matthieu Jalibert to score.  There’s a famous television interview after a four-try first-half demolition job where the studio panel talk up his finishing. “What do you expect me to do?” replied Penaud. “Pass to the touchline?”

He is the very essence of the ice-cool French enigma. It would be unfair, however, to think him disinterested in rugby’s nuts and bolts.

“The perception is a little bit different to the reality in terms of his level of effort and contributions to the team,” McNamara says. “He just has a different personality.

“Sometimes during the week you’re like… you know? But he’s always there on Saturday and he has built up such a body of work and so many pictures in his mind. He is calm. So calm. Literally, regardless of circumstances, before the game he’ll ask ‘What do we do? Okay.’ And he does his job. Simple as that. Sometimes the other bits and pieces can grow arms and legs.

“Damian prepares, he has an incredible ability to win a game, he is a phenomenal athlete and he sees solutions. He is so imaginative.

“He is a loyal team-mate, he takes as much pleasure in assisting as scoring. It sounds contradictory because he is a poacher, his ability to score tries is the best I’ve ever seen, but he’s not obsessed by it.”

Louis Bielle-Biarrey
Age:
21
Caps:
14
Tries:
10

His bright red hat is like a laser beam, burning a route through the heavyweights, lighting those sparks McNamara talks about so vividly. Seared to the big time with a memorable Rugby World Cup three months after his 20th birthday. This season, between club and country, the slight winger has 16 tries in 15 matches. Bielle-Biarrey is precocious and prolific.

“Louis is incredibly mature for his age,” McNamara says. “Confident guy. Conscientious. The thing that stands out is the speed, but it’s speed of brain as well as physical speed. I would talk about his mental quickness and physical quickness. I have known lots of quick rugby players who can’t necessarily bring that point of difference onto the pitch. Physical quickness is that linear speed. But rugby quickness is doing that when monsters are trying to catch you and smash you.”

Bielle-Biarrey’s predatory instincts were evident again during the Champions Cup. His savaging of Ulster and Leicester, and his capacity to identify space, kick into it, and gas all challengers.

“He can recognise opportunities very, very quickly,” McNamara goes on. “It’s about having people in sync with him – one of the big moments against Leicester was a team incredibly in sync with each other and that cannot be underestimated. Rugby is the ultimate game of inter-dependence.”

Matthieu Jalibert
Age:
26
Caps:
34
Tries/points:
3/89

This has been a challenging year for the mercurial pivot. With Ntamack injured, Jalibert was criticised for a meek French start to last year’s championship. He was omitted from the matchday squads to play New Zealand and Argentina in November and chose to leave  camp rather than hold tackle bags. Recently, Galthie has preferred Ntamack and Ramos at fly-half and despite his vast skillset, Jalibert will not feature against Wales.

“Matthieu was outstanding for us throughout the Top 14 and Champions Cup and unfortunately suffered a couple of untimely injuries, and was in a race to make the Top 14 final,” McNamara says. “He wasn’t in the best position to perform as he would have liked.

Matthieu Jalibert UBB
Though not a front-line pick for France, Jalibert continues to thrive for his club (Photo by ROMAIN PERROCHEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

“At international level it is challenging and the coach made his decision. Matthieu was given the option to stay in Marcoussis or return to his club. It’s been blown out of all proportion. He is back in the mix with France on the back of some very strong performances for us. The next level for him is to guide his club to winning something.”

Jalibert feels wonderfully at home in Bordeaux. After a forgettable slugfest in the mist against Montpellier, he picked up a microphone and addressed the Chaban Delmas hordes. When he announced a new three-year contract, the place went bonkers.

“He is one of the best rugby players in the world, without a shadow of a doubt,” McNamara stresses. “His ability to find solutions, to make decisions under extreme pressure. He is technically outstanding, tactically very confident. He has been on fire for us.

“The biggest challenge in international rugby is the time it takes to gel a group. When you look at Ireland, they tend to be focused around one club, Leinster. It was the same with the Crusaders in New Zealand. It is one way the coaches try to bypass the challenge of creating connections. Fabien has made the choice it is Dupont with Ntamack or Ramos. When you have a player as capable as Matthieu, I don’t see how he cannot be involved. That will be the case. He will continue to play games for France. Matthieu the person and the player is too good not be involved.”

Maxime Lucu
Age:
32
Caps:
27
Tries:
1

Lucu, as with any French nine, must play in the sprawling shadow cast by Dupont. Scrum-halves are totemic figures France and the depth chart right now makes the Mariana Trench look positively shallow. The trio of Baptistes – Lyon’s Couilloud, Clermont upstart Jauneau and the outstanding Serin of Toulon – do not make the training squad, let alone see any action. Nolann Le Garrec usurped Lucu midway through last year’s Six Nations while Dupont played sevens and the Racing man will be on the bench ahead of Lucu this week. Bordeaux’s captain and figurehead will be undeterred.

Lucu has overcome numerous setbacks to remain part of Fabien Galthie’s plans (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

“There’s very little argument about Dupont’s quality,” McNamara says. “A lot of people in Maxime’s position would have said ‘that’s it for me’ after the last Six Nations. That’s not his character, or who he is. He got his head down, played again in the autumn and continues to show up. He’s been remarkable for us. If it doesn’t go his way, he will continue to contribute to the group. There’s no bigger testament.”

The shaven-headed terrier is also Bordeaux’s tone-setter.

“I cannot speak highly enough of him as captain of our team. He is the heartbeat of our attack. An incredible person first and foremost. An absolute absence of ego which is a very rare quality. He is completely team-focused, disciplined, generous. He will always have a word for everybody at the club.

“He still has that Basque nature and fiery competitiveness and it all moulds into an incredible captain.”

Yoram Moefana

Age: 24
Caps:
31
Tries:
4

The all-action centre starts alongside renascent Toulousain Pierre-Louis Barassi in round one. He has charted a remarkable voyage from Noumea on the New Caledonian peninsula to the French national team. His uncle Sipili Falatea is now a Bordeaux team-mate, though the pair are only three years apart.

Moefana had the courage to leave his homeland aged just 13 to follow his rugby dream. Such determination and maturity shines brightly in his play.

Moefana has been set the challenge of emulating legendary All Blacks centre Ma’a Nonu in his development (Photo by ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images)

“What you see off the back of that is an incredibly mentally durable, tough athlete,” McNamara says. “When we talk about Maxime being the heartbeat of the attack, Yoram is probably that mental toughness emblem.

“He’s incredibly physical, developing in his game sense, and the distribution side to his game. We used the example during the year of Ma’a Nonu and how he went about developing. That’s the journey Yoram can go on and become one of the most complete centres in the game. He has all the attributes.”

Moefana is more strong, silent type than outgoing raconteur. That’s partly why he commands such respect.

“He is a real silent assassin. Not a really extroverted guy, just goes about his business in a really assertive way. If you were to ask the players who they’d want going into battle in the trenches beside them, Yoram would be one of the first names.”

Nicolas Depoortere
Age:
22
Caps:
2
Tries:
0

The former France Under-20s captain took European rugby by storm last year. His potent combination of size, speed and wit belied his inexperience and his highlight reel already boasts blockbuster scenes.

“Sometimes we forget his age and the expectations are very, very high,” McNamara says. “Some of the things Nico did last year defied logic – length of the field tries and things like that. For him it’s about understanding those moments are awesome but it’s very difficult to repeat them.

Depoortere is a young powerhouse who stands at 6ft 4ins tall (Photo by ROMAIN PERROCHEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

“It’s about developing that consistency and patience at the top level. When I coached at Leinster, Isa Nacewa, he had a fantastic way of describing a performance: if you do 10 things, can eight of them be good? Can nine of them be good? If I do 20 things, are 18 of them good? If I do 30, are 27 of them positive which contribute to the team? That’s what it looks like at the highest level. It’s not about having two line breaks and then being absent, it’s about having lots of little moments you come out the right side of. That’s where Nico is improving.”

Depoortere won his first two caps during last year’s Six Nations, helping France to wins over Wales and England. The midfield is ferociously competitive but Gael Fickou, who has long owned the 13 jersey, is injured. Emilien Gailleton, another young gunslinger, and Antoine Frisch are also in the conversation.

“As a position, 13 is difficult, and the defensive responsibility that comes with it is one of Nico’s strengths,” McNamara says. “His ability to read the attack and be effective.

“He is competing with Fickou, who has almost 100 caps for France and tends to be very, very effective on the defensive side. I’ve no doubt Nico will get an opportunity and it will be up to him to demonstrate what he’s capable of.”

Comments

2 Comments
B
BB 27 days ago

And Romain Buros ?? 🥲

J
J V 27 days ago

Such a great player. I hope we'll see him in the french squad soon enough. I think he's a pretty shy person and might lack a bit of self confidence, which may be sth that held him back a little

Load More Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
Search