JAMES HARRINGTON
FRENCH COLUMN
No matter what Leinster thought about the situation when the news broke, European rugby officials took one of just two reasonable options open to them when they cancelled those unplayed Champions and Challenge Cup round two games from December and recorded them all as 0-0 draws.
The other would have been to cut the two-leg last-16 play-off stage to a winner-takes-all one-leg affair. The thinking behind the decision to sacrifice December games to the greater hope of more competitive, mean-something matches in mid- April, when the sun will be shining and the rugby will be running, makes sense.
Everyone hopes Covid will be in hasty retreat by then, allowing for stadiums to be filled with shiny, happy rugby fans.
Top 14 bosses, meanwhile, cling to a different hope that – as they did last season – they will be able to play all their games and complete the campaign.
Despite the fact that the virus played merry-hell with the best-laid Christmas plans of both league and broadcasters, there are currently fewer matches to catch up. Equally, there are fewer weeks to fit them in.
So far, ten Top 14 clubs face catchup games in the weeks to come.
Only Castres, Lyon, Perpignan and Biarritz are – for now – on schedule in the French top flight, having played all 15 of their fixtures.
By contrast, all games in the second-tier ProD2 have gone ahead as planned – until this week, when Beziers' match against Montauban was called off.
Some Top 14 clubs have more than one game to pick up – Toulouse and Montpellier have two to play, while Toulon are three matches behind schedule.
The question is: where are there free dates in an already crowded calendar. Montpellier, in particular, faced this challenge in 2020/21. They managed it pretty well, to be fair, winning the Challenge Cup in a period when they also faced playing a number of midweek catch-up matches. They pretty much sacrificed a match against Bordeaux, selecting numerous academy and fringe players, so they would be able to pick a strong side for the showpiece final against Leicester at Twickenham.
But head coach Philippe Saint- Andre would be among the first to say that he would hope that was a once-only, short-term scenario. He wouldn't want to manage it again.
On Thursday, the LNR decided to use the only existing gaps in the domestic rugby calendar – Six Nations weekends – to clear some of the backlog.
The Top 14 and the Six Nations already clash on two of the five weekends – when France take on Italy on February 6 and when Les Bleus travel to Edinburgh to meet Scotland on February 26. On Friday, the league added matches to the weekends of February 11, March 11, and March 19.
“Coach Ugo Mola revealed Dupont had suffered an injury, having previously claimed he was unwell”
Now, league officials plan to schedule catch-up matches on the three remaining weekends, which presents clubs with another planning headache. After a ten-week opening block of games before the November internationals, coaches were looking to another break after an 11-week run, including four European rounds. Now, many won't have that. Toulon won't get a break at all until April at the earliest, assuming they have no Challenge Cup ambitions.
Toulouse, meanwhile, supplied 11 players to the national squad for the Autumn Internationals, and will probably have to give up as many again to Fabien Galthie's Six Nations challenge.
Including their catch-up matches against Stade Francais and Montpellier, reigning Top 14 and European champions Toulouse are set to face four matches over the Six Nations period when they will be without these key players.
We will find out how deeply Fabien Galthie is to raid Toulouse stocks on Tuesday, when the FFR will reveal his first 42-player squad for the Six Nations.
As well as recognised internationals and summer tour breakout stars, it's expected that he'll name a number of uncapped players for the first training camp, set to take place from January 23. In that case, Toulouse may lose more talent to France than they did in November.
One player being touted in France as a doubt for the start of the Tournament is World Player of the Year Antoine Dupont, who missed yesterday's Champions Cup trip to Wasps.
Dupont has not played for Toulouse since the Champions Cup opener in Cardiff on December 11.
Much of the speculation rests on an odd exchange at a Press conference on Thursday, when Toulouse coach Ugo Mola revealed that the player had suffered an injury, having previously claimed he had been unwell, and was ‘tired'.
Mola refused to say what the injury was, or how serious it was, telling journalists that “the France team would communicate [more] later”. But he did say: “I'm not worried about it. The season is still long. He was supposed to be lined up [for the called-off matches] against Wasps and Stade Français. He has small worries that are not very serious.
“It's increased his period without gametime, but that's not all down to his injuries.”
It seems that as much of the blame for the Dupont mystery lies with the current policy in France that mandarins at FFR headquarters in Marcoussis have a greater say in the release of information on – and interviews with, if it comes to that – international players.
Dupont may be injured. He may miss the start of the Six Nations, though the reality is actually quite promising. But Mola, who's not always a friend to the media, is right to be frustrated that he can't say much about it because someone outside Paris has told him not to.
