JAMES HARRINGTON
FRENCH COLUMN

WHOEVER said that rugby is a young person’s game clearly never met near-ageless Argentine fly-half Benjamin Urdapilleta. The former Harlequins, Oyonnax, Castres and Clermont 10 officially retired from rugby at the end of the 2024/25 season – but answered a desperate plea for help from new Perpignan boss Laurent Labit last November to help the Catalan club out of a nightmare of their own making.
The club had not won a Top 14 match last season when Urdapilleta, then 39, arrived nearly three months into the campaign. By the end of it all, t...