Babes Against the Machine: La Rochelle face Toulouse in Top 14 clash
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Nine years ago, almost to the day, La Rochelle beat Top 14 rivals Castres 25-21 at Stade Marcel Deflandre.
That meeting, on January 2, 2016, wasn’t particularly important in the grand scheme of the season. La Rochelle went on to finish ninth. The visitors that day reached the play-offs but lost in the barrage round to Montpellier.
For the record, a Dan Carter-inspired Racing 92, whose defence coach at the time was a certain Ronan O’Gara, beat Toulon 29-21 in that season’s Top 14 final at Camp Nou.
What’s so important, then, about a chilly midseason encounter in La Rochelle on the other side of the pandemic that had no meaningful bearing on the outcome of the season?
The fact that it was played in front of a then-sellout 15,000 Deflandre crowd. It was the first sell-out match of a run that — either side of covid-era restrictions — hits 100 consecutive home matches on Saturday, when a new stadium-capacity 16,689 fans will see O’Gara’s La Rochelle, sixth in the Top 14 heading into their first match of 2025, the first match of the long and winding run-in, take on New Year table-toppers and the biggest of French rugby big beasts Toulouse.
Just shy of 1.6m fans have streamed through the turnstiles at Marcel Deflandre in that time, the club reported on social media on Friday. Those able to make it this weekend will be looking for a celebration on and off the pitch.
Despite enforced absences and recent history — Toulouse have won 11 of the two sides’ last 14 meetings, most recently an utterly entertaining 35-27 encounter at Ernest Wallon on the second weekend of the season — O’Gara has every reason to be confident of a home win for the 100th capacity game. In truth, it’s a match that could be subtitled Babes Against the Machine.
Centre Jonathan Danty suffered a knee injury in last weekend’s high-player-cost defeat at Perpignan that will keep him out of the reckoning well into the Six Nations. Argentinian tighthead Joel Sclavi and scrum-half Thomas Berjon are also out with injuries picked up at Stade Aime Giral.
Will Skelton is sidelined this week with an ankle injury — O’Gara clearly hopes his second row will be fit for next Sunday’s Champions Cup outing against Leinster. And Toulouse-bound Teddy Thomas is serving a four-week suspension for a dangerous tackle in the win over Clermont shortly before Christmas.
The coach has gone as full bore as he can for this match, after resting a number of key players last weekend — including Skelton, Uini Atonio, Grégory Alldritt, UJ Seuteni, Dillyn Leyds, Tawera Kerr-Barlow, and Ihaia West. As expected, all bar the Australian giant are back this week, while nominal backrow Judicaël Cancoriet moves into the engine room, alongside Ultan Dillane.
Uini Atonio starts at tighthead, as he did in that first sell-out match nine years ago. Levani Botia, the only other La Rochelle survivor from that win over Castres, when he started in the centre, is on the bench.
Toulouse, with eyes firmly on next week’s Champions Cup trip to Durban to face Sharks — the squad for that game is set to fly out on Sunday — sent unmissable signals they were sending a young side to La Rochelle early on in the week.
Forwards coach Jean Bouilhou said in a midweek press conference: “We are used to rotating our squad against teams said to be better than us on paper — and each time we see that our young players respond.”
Loosehead Cyril Baille returns to a Top 14 pitch for the first time since last season’s semi-final in Bordeaux against La Rochelle, as captain of a Toulouse side featuring 14 players in the starting 15, with a further three on the bench, born this side of January 1, 2000.
Four of the visitors — Thomas Alary, Lucas Vignères, Raphael Portat, and Sialevailea Tolofua — will play their first senior professional match this weekend.
Scrum-half Simon Daroque has 11 minutes of Top 14 rugby behind him, and rapid winger Celian Pouzelgues played one minute against Clermont last season. Fly-half Valentin Delpy and lock Efrain Elias have featured on two senior teamsheets.
Olympic gold-medalist Nelson Epee, meanwhile, is set for his first Toulouse start since February 25.
The average age of Ugo Mola’s Babes this weekend is just over 22. Baille is the only player in the squad over 30, and his 197 club appearances are more than twice that of the next most experienced starter, Josh Brennan, who has 76 — which is, in turn, twice as many as third-most experienced player Théo Ntamack. Those two and Paul Costes make up 151 of the 216 senior matches of the 14 starters under Baille's watch.