As dogfights go, the scrap to avoid relegation from the Top 14 this season could see a lot of fur fly between now and 7 June.
There are five rounds to go in the regular season and four clubs are fighting for their survival. Vannes are bottom on 30 points, six behind Perpignan and Stade Français, and 10 shy of Racing 92.
Vannes, however, are at home in three of their remaining five matches while Perpignan are away in all but two of their games. It’s unlikely they’ll win at Montpellier, Clermont or La Rochelle. Even with home advantage, the Catalans might also struggle to win their last game of the season on 7 June, as it’s against Toulouse.
Perpignan’s other home game is against Stade Français on 10 May, a confrontation that will be of huge significance given that this weekend the Parisians are also away, though just up the road at Racing 92.
It’s been a wretched season for Racing 92, even by their under-performing standards of recent years. Stuart Lancaster was given the boot in late January but the Englishman’s departure as head coach hasn’t transformed Racing’s fortunes. They still look lost under new boss Patrice Collazo, a team of stars in a galaxy of mediocrity.
Nevertheless, Racing should have the strength to exploit their home advantage and beat Stade Français on Sunday evening. The fact that the capital’s two clubs find themselves in this perilous situation is a damning indictment of the sorry state of rugby in Paris.
It’s been this way for years. Paris isn’t a sporting city in the way that London, Glasgow, Sydney or Auckland are. Racing 92 and Stade Français have struggled for years for sponsors and bums on seats. In March 2017 they attempted to solve this problem by merging, but such was the backlash from the FFR, other clubs and politicians that they abandoned the idea.
If Stade struggle for sponsors and spectators playing in the most glamorous domestic league in world rugby, one wonders what would happen if they had to attract Parisians to come and watch the likes of Valence Romans and Nevers on a chilly January afternoon.
At the end of that season the owner of Stade Français, Thomas Savare, offloaded the club, having invested more than €20m of the family’s money in five and a half years.
One imagines that Savare hasn’t had a moment of regret in the eight years since he sold up to the Swiss businessman Hans-Peter Wild. In his first season at the helm, Wild said he knew he was taking on a “difficult” challenge, but he predicted that “in three years, we’ll be champions!”.
They haven’t even come close. Instead Stade are now fighting for their Top 14 lives. As the headline in Monday’s Midi Olympique put it: ‘Paris is in great danger’. A few weeks ago, the Stade Français supporters group issued a statement calling for an end to the “clash of egos” within the club. It was time to pull together, ran the statement, because Stade Français was “in an unprecedented situation unworthy of its history and record”.
One fears for the club’s future in the event that they are relegated to the ProD2; if Stade struggle for sponsors and spectators playing in the most glamorous domestic league in world rugby, one wonders what would happen if they had to attract Parisians to come and watch the likes of Valence Romans and Nevers on a chilly January afternoon.
They’ve parted company with three senior members of the coaching staff this season and the players look like their morale has also walked out of the door. Last Sunday they lost at home to a Toulouse team that was practically their academy side. It was embarrassing. Even if Stade avoid bottom place (and thereby automatic relegation) and finish 13th, they would play-off against the runners-up in ProD2, likely on current form to be either Grenoble or Courtney Lawes’ Brive. The bookies’ money wouldn’t be on Stade Français.
The next few weeks will be stressful ones for many French rugby fans…but they’ll also be gripping weeks, underlining that promotion and relegation are integral to rugby’s integrity
As for Vannes, they still have reasons to be cheerful. The Brittany side have not been the whipping boys many predicted at the start of the season; they’ve won six, drawn one and many of their defeats have been narrow; their four defensive points this season is bettered only by three other clubs.
Vannes host Toulon, La Rochelle and Pau between now and 7 June, and are on the road at Bayonne and Bordeaux. Crucially, their squad appears in better shape mentally than Stade Français’ because they knew from the outset that this season would be about survival.
The next few weeks will be stressful ones for many French rugby fans, be they Bretons in the far north, Parisians or Catalans in the deep south. But they’ll also be gripping weeks, underlining that promotion and relegation are integral to rugby’s integrity.
Supporters of Grenoble and Brive will also be having plenty of sleepless nights, as will those of Beziers, Provence and Colomiers, who are also pushing for promotion from the ProD2.
In contrast, the URC and the Premiership will miss this edge in the last month of the regular season. In the latter, for example, with five weeks of the season to go the bottom three clubs – Northampton, Exeter and Newcastle – have nothing to play for.
Remove the jeopardy and you run the risk of predictability or worse, monotony. That might not turn off investors, but it would turn off spectators.
Last year there was talk that relegation would be reintroduced into the Premiership, but a report in last week’s Daily Telegraph indicated that there has been a change of heart. The paper claimed that senior figures within Premiership Rugby, the RFU and shareholders CVC Capital “have spent several months developing a comprehensive blueprint that could come into force as early as 2026”.
It is a franchise model that would exclude relegation because there is an “acceptance growing in English rugby’s corridors of power that potential investors are being turned off by the presence of such jeopardy.”
Isn’t jeopardy part of sport? It is what makes it so thrilling. Remove the jeopardy and you run the risk of predictability or worse, monotony. That might not turn off investors, but it would turn off spectators.
Exeter play Northampton on 11 May, the same weekend that Perpignan host Stade Français. One match will be a relegation dogfight, the other will be a chance to take the dog for a walk because there will be nothing meaningful at stake at Sandy Park.
