Pau-bound Daniel Ikpefan braves the crossover | James Harrington
This weekend is known as ‘the crossover' in France – it's when the last of the July holidaymakers head back home, while the first of the August families set off on their annual summer getaway.
It's a nightmare for anyone travelling, and the best advice for anyone planning a trip is: don't.
One player who has reason to enjoy the summer crossover, however, is Pau signing Daniel Ikpefan, who headed west along the southern edge of the country from Toulon, with Atila Septar going the other way.
The move marks the end of a difficult period for 27-year-old winger Ikpefan. He should have been at the top of his game – and his first two seasons with Toulon, after he had moved south from Oyonnax – were promising.
But he fell out of favour with manager Patrice Collazo after a couple of mixed performances while playing out of position during an injury crisis, finding himself on the periphery when he had once been an increasingly central figure.
He played just ten games last season, starting five, and failing to score. The previous season, he started 16 times in 18 selections, scoring five tries, and had run in nine tries in 23 outings – 15 of which were in the starting line-up – in his debut year in the Var.
“I had two years left in Toulon,” Ikpefan told Midi Olympique this week. “But the coach hadn't wanted me for a while. I learned that indirectly, through my agent.
“At the end of the season, I understood that I had to leave. I needed a new challenge. I was fine in Toulon, but in terms of rugby I needed to start from scratch. Pau welcomed me.”
Ikpefan is one of the fortunate ones. The switch to Pau – agreed at the end of June, shortly before the official transfer window closed – suited both club and player.
Those two further years on Ikpefan's contract may have made him too expensive for president Bernard Lemaitre to simply cast aside. He could, maybe, have stayed – and hoped against hope to get another unlikely chance.
More likely, he would have spent next season as training ground fodder, seeing his rugby career wither on the vine, before – perhaps, in a nightmare scenario for a player who thinks they still have a future in the game – being released with no club interested in him.
So a move was the only viable option –a chance to renew his relationship with the game.
Ikpefan knows it. “I want to show that I'm still the same player,” he said. “Scoring will be a first step, because I didn't score last season. It frustrated me.”
Proving that a rugby career is tough at the top, middle and bottom, others have not been so fortunate.
It's a short career at the best of times, for the best of players. Not every player gets to retire on their own terms. And far from everyone is on the mega contracts that routinely create the headlines, so there's not always a nice little nest egg.
According to French professional players' union Provale, some 50 professional rugby players' contracts ended on June 30 in France. Last year, the number of players who lost Top 14 and ProD2 contracts was over 100.
The most obvious of them this time around is, perhaps, Gabriel Ibitoye, whose season-long French nightmare officially ended this past week after he and relegated Agen agreed to end his contract a year early. There has been no news, yet, on where he may end up.
“Gabriel Ibitoye's season-long French nightmare officially ended this week”
He's far from the only one. Others whose future remains uncertain after the transfer window officially closed include France internationals Hugo Bonneval, Vincent Pelo, Benjamin Fall and Djibril Camara.
Provale admits that its list of newly unemployed professional rugby players is an underestimate. Some prefer not to be included in the publicised list – others, usually those a little further down the professional scale, do not even inform the union of their situation.
The reason for the high number of redundancies over the past couple of years? Clubs – strapped for cash and facing a lowering salary cap – are increasingly relying on academy players, while at the same time more frequently selling stability to key senior players with offers of longer, if less eye-catchingly lucrative, contracts.
Because players are moving between clubs less, opportunities are harder to come by for those who are considered surplus to require-ments. The new third-tier Nationale league, which creates a professional bridge between the mostly amateur Federale league and the ProD2 is an option. But many are still waiting and hoping. In France, the transfer window is routinely extended for players who are without a contract when the window closes. This season, clubs can hire an unemployed player until January 31, 2022, without eating into their additional player or medical joker quotas. It's a system that offers some hope, at least.
But it's still a difficult time for those out of work, having started a career that's short on years. Provale does what it can: it keeps clubs informed of available players, offers psychological support, and post-rugby study and career opportunities.
In their defence, clubs too try to prepare players for life after rugby. It's just that, sometimes, that life starts earlier than players may have hoped. “It's a really difficult time for them, they find themselves in a precarious, complicated situation. We are an attentive ear,” said Provale's Mathieu Giudicelli.
And the good news? Provale said that it manages to find a future – in rugby or out after it – for 80 per cent of the players on its list every year. That's something, at least.
Newly promoted Biarritz will host the first match of the new Top 14 season at Parc des Sports Aguilera.
Their return to the top-flight match against Bordeaux was confirmed as the season opener, kicking off at 1pm (UK time) on Saturday, September 4. The Paris derby at Jean Bouin between Stade Francais and Racing 92 will be at 5.15pm on a festival of opening-day rugby, after Brive-Perpignan and Castres-Pau both start at 3.05pm. The prime-time match to close out the opening Saturday will be Toulon-Montpellier at 8.05pm.
On Sunday, September 5, Lyon-Clermont is at 4.45pm, and La Rochelle-Toulouse at 8.05pm. After that, the fixture list settles into its regular TV-approved routine, with six matches on Saturdays, kicking off at 2pm, 4pm and 8pm, and the final match of the season in the Sunday primetime sport slot of 8.05pm.
