Paris (AFP)
Finally a doubled? If Toulouse seems armed to become the first team to maintain its title of champion for nearly ten years, it will face a competition as fierce in the season of Top 14 which opens Saturday, truncated by the World Cup.
A 20th Shield of Brennus, the first since 2012, a rain of records, an orgy of tests and a feast for the eyes: all the planets were aligned for the Rouge et Noir in 2018-2019.
They logically belong to the favorites to their own succession to achieve a double that they are the last to have accomplished (2011 and 2012): their workforce is stable and their young guard seasoned with a year of additional experience.
But the road to the Stade de France will be long, since the season will stretch until June 26, World Cup requires, and will be especially full of pitfalls.
These include the post-title decompression experienced by all recent champions, and especially the absence of many international mobilized by the Japanese World (September 20-November 2), which will be lacking for at least the first seven days.
"We had the example of the Six Nations Tournament (2019) where the team behaved very well (without the internationals) .I wish us that it is the same thing at the beginning of the season (...) Anyone can do the job, Julien Marchand answered on Monday, their captain currently injured.
- The stars shun the Top 14 -
The internationals (a hundred in total, or 15% of the participants in the World Cup) will also be missing in Clermont, the finalist, who also bet on stability to confirm that his catastrophic season 2017-2018 was only 'an accident.
In 2018-2019, the cador taking his feet in the carpet was called Toulon, absent from the finals for the first time since 2011.
The volcanic president Mourad Boudjellal has nevertheless maintained his confidence in Patrice Collazo, but the Var is hardly entitled to error for his second season: the RCT must return to the final phase.
Especially if he lost Mathieu Bastareaud (Lyon and New York) and Guilhem Guirado (Montpellier), he recorded some big wins, with Baptiste Serin, the former All Black Nehe Milner-Skudder and especially the vice-president. South African captain Eben Etzebeth. Or the second dominant and rough line that Toulon and his audience were orphaned since the departure of the pair Botha-Williams in 2015.
Etzebeth is one of the few foreign stars to join the Top 14 after the World Cup. It is far from the influx of 2015, where Dan Carter, Ma'a Nonu, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Will Genia or Conrad Smith came to cash their talent in France!
The strengthening of the JIFF system (the clubs will have to average the season 16 players trained in France per match) explains only part of this disenchantment: the Top 14 is now competing with the Japanese championship, as lucrative and much less traumatic , and only Ben Smith (Pau) and Handré Pollard have imitated Etzebeth.
- UBB, a Urios effect? -
Pollard, South Africa's opener, will be responsible for guiding Montpellier's game, which to finally win his first major title has placed his fate in the hands of Xavier Garbajosa.
The former deputy of La Rochelle will endorse for the first time the head coach costume and will be one of the attractions on the benches.
The others will be Christophe Urios, passed from Castres to Bordeaux-Bègles to finally cross the UBB the course of qualification, and the Irish Ronan O'Gara, arrived from New Zealand to hoist La Rochelle on the highest step .
A page was also turned to Racing 92, with the end of the pair Laurent Travers-Laurent Labit after the start of the second to the XV of France. It is now only at the controls that Travers will have to bring back the club Ile-de-France on the way of a title which flees it since 2016.
Racing's rivals, Stade Français, are also aiming for the finals at least, missed in the first season of Heyneke Meyer, agitated behind the scenes.
Very stable at the opposite, Lyon will try to confirm its two consecutive semi-finals. Castres is probably launched in a transition season while Pau and Agen, and especially the promoted Brive and Bayonne, will aim to maintain.
© 2019 AFP