Bayonne stun Toulouse with upset win in San Sebastien

Great match in a great atmosphere. But i really wonder when the french clubs ligue and the FFR will work together in order to install a coherent calendar between Top14 matchs and Internationals encounters. french players nearly play 15 matches more than welsh, irish, and scottish.
Furthermore, RFU works hand to hand with premiership clubs. time to change!

ps: still not convinced by Huget a tinternational level, clerc comes back well, michalak seems to have some gas actually

Bear in mind French clubs have deeper pockets than those of the home nations and thus bigger squads. They tend to rotate their squads and so even with more fixtures in the calendar it's doubtful that the individual players actually play more games.....

@ Le Grand Fromage

Yes they do

Seemed like an exciting few days in Top14 rugby. Perpignan running over Stade, Biarritz almost losing to Rochelle, Agen and Montpellier going down to the wire, and Bayonne showing Toulouse how it's done. Great stuff. Blink your eye and you're bound to miss something exciting in the Top14.

That was a beautiful intercept, too....though it looked like the referee put more effort into chasing Huget than Clerc did.

I didn't get to see any of the Toulouse match, so thanks for the post, RD!

whats up with the football style jerses for bayonne?

As they were playing in Spain, in San Sebastien stadium, they played with the Real Sociedad jersey (not sure about the team, I'm an ignorant in football)

yea the atmosphere at french clubs has always impressed me, compare that to cardiff v edinburgh its laughable really

Sorry but that was terrible. If Toulouse learnt to not try and score the perfect try everytime and just took the ball into contact, they would have won that match. In the end it provided an end to end rugby match. They only have themselves to blame with such poor attacking play

Skrela had some really good moments it seemed. Although the ball went to ground and forward quite a few times still seems like a very good match to watch.
Love French cemmentary. Can't understand anything they say but they seem very passionate

Cracking game with handling that most of the Nh teams could learn from. Huget did look good in the highlights making several long breaks,linking up well and not dieing with the ball

Great game. What an atmosphere.

What a great crowd.
The T14 is a great comp, I love these big games they have.
Great atmosphere.

Just a correction.
It's spelled SebastiAn not SebastiEn.

Great video though.

Yeah well, to anon above, we Frenchies tend to convert every city's name into French, and therefore we actually call it "Saint Sbastien" or San Sbastien...

as for what Le Grand Fromage said about deep pockets (true) and turnover (not entirely true).. it always comes to wether clubs will use their best players (international players) as much as they can, or not. And, well...they do. as you've seen, all the Toulousains and Bayonnais (only Huget, it seems) who played against England were on the pitch today, and will be next saturday against Italy...

A study was made between Dusautoir (French Captain and Toulouse Captain) and McCaw: result is Dusautoir played an average of 25 games more than McCaw every year... and that's part of the reason why the French Squad SUCKS.

Other reasons are incoherent choices from Livremont, the lack of adaptation of Top 14 to international rugby, and obviously the fact that LNR (national Rugby league) and FFR (french rugby federation, in charge of the National squad) cannot work together, as LNR officials are SOBs who only try to fill their pockets.

I know you english speaking people tend to consider French rugby as rubbish, but I can assure you if all those problems were less important, we would be a very good side!!

Why aren't we seeing any Highlights of the T14 any longer on Rugbydump? It's a shame...
Nice try from Clerc! Looks like the one he scored a couple yrs ago in Dublin...

Completly ok with anon above,

French rugby must do a revolution between the clubs and the federation, because french international players play too much with their clubs
Consequences? Injuries, tiredness and sometimes a lack of cohesion between the international players.

Solutions? revise the calendar, reduce the number of teams (12 teams?) and install real times of preparation for les bleus.
If it may won't be ok for the next rwc, the next manager of les bleus (st andre, galthi?) must discuss with every clubs and have full-powers. Problem, france doesn't like monarchy system ;)

Is it just me or did Michalak take the quick tap penalty at the end before it was actually awarded?