BRENDAN GALLAGHER - Rugby Matters

A weekly look at the game’s other talking points

English Rugby, or rather the RFU and Premiership Rugby, have a peculiar relationship with French club rugby seemingly fuelled by mistrust and occasionally downright hostility.
Players brave enough or good enough to roll up their sleeves in the Top 14 are treated with suspicion – misfits or malcontents – and sent to Coventry in terms of Test rugby.
Which, in turn, means those Englishmen venturing across the Channel tend to be adventurers or angry odd balls, those who have been overlooked by the Engla...