French heart beats loudly at Toulon ahead of Leinster clash

Mourad Boudjellal is not a man to shy away from a fight and the Toulon president was in characteristically combative mood last week. 

His target was a gentleman called Pierre Salviac, a former rugby commentator on French television, who posted a critical message on twitter about Toulon. It was nothing new, Salviac trotting out the line about the European champions doing little to develop young French players.

Boudjellal went ballistic. “He should think before speaks,” retorted the president. “Because at Clermont, we fielded a front row that was 100% a product of our youth academy without forgetting [Konstantin] Mikautadze, [Eric] Escande et [Josua] Tuisova, nor that 75% of the youngsters on the bench had come through the academy ranks.”

Boudjellal added that since the start of this season, no other Top 14 side has fielded as many French-qualified players as Toulon. On that last point, he’s slightly askew with his facts, for Toulouse are in front of Toulon when it comes to meeting the FFR’s stipulation that 55% of each club’s squad must contain players who — before the age of 21 — have spent either three seasons at a French club’s youth academy or five seasons licensed to play in France. In addition, as of this season, each match-day squad of 23 must include 12 such players.

So Boudjellal is right to take umbrage at ill-informed critics who accuse Toulon of being nothing more than a team of “pension-seeking mercenaries”, as Neil Francis did last season in a newspaper column.

Yes, they have assembled a remarkable array of international talent, and in swatting aside Agen 53-23 last Saturday, Toulon’s backline included Delon Armitage, James O’Connor, Mathieu Bastareaud, Ma’a Nonu, Drew Mitchell and Matt Giteau, not forgetting a second-half appearance from Bryan Habana.

Yet at scrum-half was Eric Escande, a 23-year-old Frenchman widely tipped to win his first cap in next year’s Six Nations. Escande has flourished at Toulon, rising to the challenge of playing in a squad that has some of the greatest players of their generation. He’s not alone. The Toulon front-row that helped inflict a record 35-9 defeat at Clermont the weekend before last was in similarly destructive form against Agen. Props Florian Fresia and Levan Chilichava (Georgian by birth, but a member of the Toulon academy since 2010) are 23 and 24 respectively, while the babe of the front row is hooker Anthony Etrillard, just 22.

They are just some of the youngsters who have graduated from the Toulon academy into the first-team squad. Twenty-year-old Anthony Meric replaced Nonu on Saturday, while centre Theo Belan, props Mohamed Boughanmi and Thomas Vernet and Konstantin Mikautadze have all featured this season. None are older than 24 and all are benefiting from the hothouse environment of Toulon.

But Escande and winger Josua Tuisova are the two players who have prospered the most in the last season or two.

Fortunately for Leinster, the 21-year-old Tuisova will miss Sunday’s encounter because of a sprained ankle sustained against Clermont. Prior to that, however, the Fijian-born winger had been the form player of the Top 14, running in six tries in nine matches through a combination of power and pace.

T

uisova arrived at Toulon in the summer of 2013 as a shy teenager and a raw rugby player. Two and a half years on, his weight has increased from 91kgs to 108kgs and his rugby education is nearing completion. Tuisova must decide in the coming weeks whether to dedicate his international career to Fiji or France, for whom he becomes eligible in the summer of 2016.

There is no such dilemma for Escande, who comes from good French rugby stock and first picked up a ball at the age of three. His father, Jean-François Escande, was a player and then coach of Montpellier, while a cousin, Enzo Selponi, plays for Perpignan.

Montpellier was where Escande began his career before joining Toulon in the summer of 2014. They had seen in the young scrum-half what Fabien Galthie, the former France scrum-half and then coach of Montpellier, had also seen. Galthie had brought Escande into the first-team squad in 2011, recognising that while he was rough around the edges (his kicking game was imprecise, and the speed of his pass too slow), he had a rare talent coupled with the right attitude.

“I did a lot of work with him,” explained Galthie recently. “Though he’s very talented, he quickly understood that he’d only reach the top by working incredibly hard.” Galthie also saw that Escande was a man who liked to be challenged, who relished leaving his comfort zone, a mentality not all that common on that sun-drenched strip of the Mediterranean. Impressive displays by Escande in the 2013-14 Heineken Cup pool stage against Ulster and Treviso caught the eye of Toulon, and they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

But it was a gamble. At Montpellier he had taken the No 9 jersey from Benoit Paillaugue and Jonathan Pélissié, but now he was moving 150 miles up the coast to a club where the scrum-half was the veteran France international Sebastien Tillous-Borde. But the apprentice watched, learned and took his opportunity when the master was on World Cup duty with France.

“I’m not astonished by his performances today,” said Galthie last month. “He has many qualities: humility, courage, intelligence and he reads the game well.” Galthie added that to reach international level, Escande still had some work to do, but he believes he will do it.

Galthie is widely expected to replace Bernard Laporte as Toulon’s director of rugby next season, an appointment that should it come to pass, will reunite him with his protege. In a recent interview with Midi Olympique

, Escande described their relationship as unique. He continued: “I can’t even explain it. It was rather like a fusion. Sometimes it could be very dark, he could yell at me, leave me feeling really low... as a result I was angry at him and I didn’t want to see him any more. But a few days later, all was forgotten. He brought a lot to my game... and did so much to help me make the transition from academy to senior rugby. I’m grateful.”

Escande also owes a debt of thanks to Jonny Wilkinson. The Englishman retired a few weeks before Escande arrived on the Cote d’Azur but the former Toulon fly-half now helps out at the club on a part-time basis as kicking coach.

“We work together on my kicking game, in particular goal-kicking,” explained Escande. “He’s given me a way of working that is more rigorous than anything I’ve ever had... he has a way of explaining things that make it easy for me to learn. With him you can only progress and I’m fortunate to be able to profit from his knowledge.”

It’s not just Escande who is profiting. His accuracy with the boot was in evidence against Agen as he converted five of his team’s tries and landed a penalty goal. It’s yet another string to Escande’s bow and also another opportunity for Boudjellal to take aim at the critics who say Toulon don’t develop French talent.