Why English club rugby can never be like thriving French scene

Why English club rugby can never be like thriving French scene

Hull Kingston Rovers — brink of extinction to World Club Challenge In 1997, club were in administration — nearly 30 years on, the Super League team have won a Treble and are one game away from being crowned best in the world

Tomorrow, Hull Kingston Rovers contest the World Club Challenge. A piece on administration, Hull KR 0-1 Barrow, Mark Broadhurst, and ending a 40-year drought with a Treble 🏉
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This France team should have won more with unique mix of flair and violence Anything other than a Six Nations grand slam would be failure for nation that has underdelivered in recent years despite talent available to Fabien Galthié

On France 🇫🇷 Centres galore, echoes of 1998, and why even with 18 wins in their past 22 Six Nations games they have underdelivered 🗞️
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Meet Spanish prop with English dad who is part of Toulouse machine Rugby may ignore the Spanish national team but Joel Merkler cannot be dismissed, having been key cog in Top 14 club’s domestic domination and European success

🗞️ MUST READ!

This is an absolute cracker of an article by @elgantimes.bsky.social about Toulouse’s 🇪🇸 tight head Joel Merkler.

🔥

www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-...

Violence, vengeance and monsters: the match that had it all (except points) The Springboks were out for revenge when they took on France in Colombes in 1961 but two sides at their peak failed to trouble scoreboard

Brilliant by @elgantimes.bsky.social on the epic (!) 0-0 draw in 1961 between France and South Africa.
(£) www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-...

Elgan + Top 14 Final + Songs

Need we say more? 👇

t.co/bu3KklqsFG

@elgantimes.bsky.social

It's #Lions2025 time!

Rewind a couple of months, we were joined by Professor of 🇫🇷 Rugby @elgantimes.bsky.social to pick a 21st Century 'French Lions.'

Selection based on performances in France alone. Room for Johnny Sexton? Nope. But Johnny Howard, he's in!

Who would make your 23?

Lions legend with calves the size of footballs who sold jeans to KGB From a near-fatal aftershave incident to captaining a boat bought from a Russian spy, ex-England lock Maurice Colclough had enough adventures to fill several memoirs

Brilliant by @elgantimes.bsky.social on the great rugby player and fantastic character Maurice Colclough.
(£) www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-...

Sam Davies: Welshman hoping to kick Grenoble back into Top 14 Sam Davies, who experienced fleeting fame as a Wales fly half, on shaking off career stagnation and why Saturday’s Pro D2 final is ‘like an international’

🇫🇷 The Rugbyman 🇫🇷

Pro D2 final time, and Sam Davies is ready for a match of international proportions. Third time lucky for Grenoble, or can Montauban keep the shocks going?

www.thetimes.com/article/70af...

Ex-England star aiming to give French rugby a Football Italia moment Former flanker Joe Worsley, who spent years coaching in France, commentates for FR-UK, a YouTube channel bringing second-division action to British audience

🚨The Rugbyman 🚨

British and Irish fans can now watch the Pro D2 on YouTube. Here's my chat with Joe Worsley about how we got here, via the grit/flash combo of UBB, Castres and Brive 🏉
www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-...

Ex-England star aiming to give French rugby a Football Italia moment Former flanker Joe Worsley, who spent years coaching in France, commentates for FR-UK, a YouTube channel bringing second-division action to British audience

🚨The Rugbyman 🚨

British and Irish fans can now watch the Pro D2 on YouTube. Here's my chat with Joe Worsley about how we got here, via the grit/flash combo of UBB, Castres and Brive 🏉
www.thetimes.com/sport/rugby-...

Zinedine who? Bordeaux’s rise to rugby-mad city with Europe’s biggest crowds Bordeaux, once a home to French footballing superstars, can win their first major trophy if they beat Northampton Saints in Saturday’s Champions Cup final

The rise of UBB: the 19-year-old entity in the city that once housed Zidane and now unfurls Louis B-B, with the biggest crowds in Europe but without a trophy - yet? 🏉
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The only difference these days comes from whether the bench has a 5:3/6:2/7:1 split, although French clubs put their tight-head prop in the No23 jersey, and others have done it with their flanker (Leinster and Josh van der Flier in last year’s Champions Cup final)🤡

What has changed since 1998 is how substitutes are numbered. John Griffiths identified 2000 as the shift to having the hooker at 16, then forwards and backs. That year, national sides flip-flopped between that and the original method (Ugo Mola had worn 16 in the 99 RWC final)🔧

Standard numbering had the ease of spectators in mind. “Arsenal adopt rugby idea” read a headline in the Weekly Dispatch of August 1928. Sidney King, the West Ham manager, didn't like it and said the average spectator could “trace [players] by their position on the field” ⚽️

As this Grenoble team sheet from 1993 suggests, Willy Taofifenua wore No11 when he played centre 😱

From the Bristol Evening Post of January 1999 came the story of Phil Osman wearing No20 as Henley Hawks’ fly half, because four stand-offs had been lost to injuries and No10 was viewed as unlucky 🤕

The concept of an unlucky jersey happened every now and again. Clem Thomas wanted to wear No13 (a flanker’s jersey) at Coventry in 1952, though his predecessor had not 👻

I haven’t found conclusive proof of this, but legend has it Bath didn't use the No13 jersey for a similar season. A threequarter called Clifford Walwin took a blow to the kidneys from a tackle against Cross Keys on December 27, 1919, and died the following day.

Another variant in this decade was at West Hartlepool, who fielded a second row with a blank jersey. This was following the death of their No5 John Howe in 1992, due to a heart attack in a match against Morley.

Reports from back then said Bristol received dispensation to keep letters for 1998-99 because they had already ordered the season’s shirts, and would be on TV less 📺

You’ll still find references to Leicester’s letters at the club. The front row were dubbed the ABC Club, which didn’t correspond to Bristol because their letters worked the other way (until the subs)🤪 www.bobssportingmemorabilia.com/webshop-sear...

Wales used letters rather than numbers, as seen in this match report from 1932 🐉

Teams to this day are often still listed 15-9 then 1-8 (the flair way is to put No8 between the flankers), and that still is the natural way I would lay them out. Some teams used to have the full back in the No1 jersey, others in the No15 jersey 📜

Per Rugby Football History, numbers were first used in 1897 and had become commonplace in the Five Nations in the 1920s, albeit without a standard format 🔢 www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/player_num.htm

Until 1998, the Premiership allowed variations from 1-15. Even more famously than Bath, Leicester and Bristol still used letters 🔤

The team sheet here shows how Quins were numbered. Famously, their opponents Bath didn’t have a No13 📖 www.bobssportingmemorabilia.com/rugby-union-...

Keith Wood wore No25 for the club, even when he started at hooker. “There may be some confusion for spectators on Saturday,” the Northampton Chronicle and Echo wrote in September 1996. “Quins, for whatever reason, have adopted a soccer-style squad numbering programme.”

Harlequins required dispensation to allow Danny Care to wear No9 from the bench on Sunday, which had me thinking about how Quins numbered their squad in 1996-98...🧵

England need competition: best answer may be cross-code match With the Red Roses and Australia dominating in union and league respectively, this may be the perfect time to bring them together in ‘Clash of the Codes’ reanimation

Here's one game of rugby I think would be great fun: a Clash of the Codes between the Red Roses and Jillaroos - how about Vegas 2026?
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