Sébastien Chabal.

Let me introduce one of the best player of the National French Team : Sébastien Chabal.
He was born in Valence the 8.12.77. He plays this year wint th Sale Sharks team in England but the next Year he will be play with Racing-Metro 92 team. He is known for his violent play. He plays at the Back Rown position.

He began to play rugby at 9 years old, but at this time he disliked. However, he began again to play rugby with Beauvallon team at 16 years old. After this, he played with the Valence team and he joined the Bouguoin-Jailleu team in 1998. So, at this time he is become professional. He has played with Bouguoin until 2004. At this time he would join the Toulouse team, but finaly he has joined the english team Sale Sharks. He played at the Back Row position in this team. With Sale Sharks, he won the Guinness Premiership in 2006.

copyright : Sébastien Chabal

He has played for the first time with the French time the 4 March 2000 against Scotland. He has played 47 matches for French Teal and has made 6 touchdowns.
Let me introduce all the matchs with the French team.
He has played 14 matchs for the Six Nations championship and has scored 3 touchdowns. He has won the Six Nation championship in 2007.
He has played 9 matchs for the World cup and has made 2 touchdowns. On these 9 matchs, he has won 5 matchs and lost 4 matchs. His best ranking with the French team is the loose in semifinal the 13.10.2007 against England on the score of 14-10.

Pro D2 : the semifinal

This week, all team played the last match to second division : the Pro D2.
The Racing-Metro 92 won this championship with 107 points. The next year, they will play with the rugby elite. The French championship TOP14 will contain two north team : Stade Français and Racing-Metro 92.

With this rising, this team has recruited lot of news players. The two mainly players are Sébastien Chabal from the English team Sale, and Sébastien Nallet from Castres. This two players are two best players from the national French team. Sébastien Nallet is too the captain to this latter team.
Moreover, Racing-Metro 92 has recruited too :
Benjamin Noirot (Biarritz), Jacques Cronje (Biarritz), Fabien Fortassin (Montauban), Fabrice Culine (Agen), Juan-Pablo Orlandi (Rovigo), Clément Baïocco (Montpellier), Rémi Vaquin (La Rochelle), François Steyn (sharks).

Let me introduce this club. This team was created in 2001 with the melting of Racing CF and US metro. their stadium is Yves du Manoir which can contain 7000 peoples. Their president is Jacky Lorenzetti and they have two coaches : Pierre Berbizier and Simon Mannix.
Concerning this Year, Racin-Metro 92 have conceded 469 points and have made 73 touchdowns and have scored 754 points.The bests rugby-players of this team are Andrew Merhtens with 265 points and Sireli Bobo with 14 touchdowns.

copyright : Racing-Metro 92

Concerning the other team, 4 clubs will play the semifinal of the PRO D2 championship. These two matchs are : Agen aginst Oyonnax and Albi against La Rochelle. After this seminifinal, the two winners will be played between them. The winner of this last match will play with the rugby elite the newt year.

Now, we will wait until June 31 to know which team will join the TOP 14 with Racing Metro 92.

The 23rd and 24th round of the French Championship.

Due to vacancy, I will resume the results of the 23rd and 24th round of the French Championship.
Lets deals with results of these two turns :

The 23th turn :

Friday, April 17th 2009
20:35	Biarritz	12-10	Perpignan
Saturday, April 18th 2009
14:30	Mont-de-Marsan	21-15	Castres
	Stade Français	24-15	Montpellier
	Bayonne	61-10	Bourgoin
	Clermont	52-7	Brive
16:30	Toulon	14-6	Toulouse
20:35	Montauban	15-20	Dax

The 24th turn :

Friday, April 24th 2009
20:35	Castres	16-21	Stade Français
Saturday, April 25th 2009
14:30	Montpellier	20-11	Bayonne
	Biarritz	19-12	Toulon
	Toulouse	13-6	Bourgoin
	Montauban	15-10	Brive
16:30	Perpignan	20-16	Clermont
20:35	Dax	12-8	Mont-de-Marsan

At the moment of the 23rd round, we have saw lot of touchdown. The two best matches was Clermont against Brive with seven touchdowns, and Bayonne against Bourgoin with 8 touchdowns.
The best rugby-player of this turn was Sam Gerber, who is the 3/4 center of Bayonne, with 4 touchdowns.

Sam Gerber : copyright : Equipe.fr

An other big surprise was the defeat of Toulouse, the leader of the French championship, against Toulon. Before this match Toulon was the 12th of the championship. This defeat has for effect that Perpignan has took the first place.

For the 24th round, there was no many touchdown and any surprise.
The strength team won their match. Perpignan has preserved his first place with the victory against the 4th : Clermont.

See below the ranking after this turn :

Team		Pts	pts bonus	W.	N.	L.	+	-	Diff.
1 Perpignan		83	9	18	1	5	564	339	225
2 Toulouse		83	7	19	0	5	522	307	215
3 Stade Français		76	10	16	1	7	583	383	200
4 Clermont		73	15	14	1	9	613	361	252
5 Biarritz		62	10	13	0	11	462	376	86
6 Bayonne		61	5	13	2	9	435	442	-7
7 Brive		60	6	12	3	9	434	444	-10
8 Montauban		53	9	10	2	12	466	515	-49
9 Montpellier		50	6	11	0	13	387	517	-130
10 Castres		43	9	7	3	14	424	474	-50
11 Toulon		42	10	7	2	15	364	473	-109
12 Bourgoin		40	10	7	1	16	401	557	-156
13 Dax		37	7	7	1	16	360	537	-177
14 Mont-de-Marsan		29	7	5	1	18	314	604	-290

Now, it stay just two turn. Perpignan and Toulouse play for the first place. Stade Français and Clermont play for the 3rd place.
Biarritz, Bayonne and Brive play for a place at the H cup (International cup).
Castres, Toulon, Bougoin and Dax play to stay in the top14.

For Mont-de-Marsan, they lower to the ProD2 the next year.

copyright : Lnr.fr

The 25th turn set this week.

The 22nd round of the French Championship.

After the loose of Stade Français against Toulouse, they played on the prestigious "Stade de France" against Clermont. After two defeat on this stade this Years, Stade Français could win this week to hope to finish the season at the 3th place.
Endeed, after the 26th turn will took place 2 matches between the first aginst the forth and the second against the third. So, Stade Français and Clermont hope to finish at the 3th place toward to play against the second i.e : Perpignan.

copyright : Equipe.fr

Lets deals with all the results :

Friday, April 3th 2009
20:35	Bourgoin	43-6	Dax
Saturday, April 4th 2009
14:30	Perpignan	44-3	Mont-de-Marsan
	Montpellier	21-23	Castres
	Toulon	33-20	Montauban
	Brive	10-42	Toulouse
16:30	Stade Français	19-21	Clermont
20:35	Bayonne	15-19	Biarritz

See below the ranking after this turn :

Team		Pts	Bonus pts	W.	N.	L.	+	-	Diff.
1 Toulouse		79	7	18	0	4	503	287	216
2 Perpignan		78	8	17	1	4	534	311	223
3 Stade Français		68	10	14	1	7	538	352	186
4 Clermont		67	13	13	1	8	545	334	211
5 Brive		59	5	12	3	7	417	377	40
6 Bayonne		56	4	12	2	8	363	412	-49
7 Biarritz		54	10	11	0	11	431	354	77
8 Montauban		48	8	9	2	11	436	485	-49
9 Montpellier		46	6	10	0	12	352	482	-130
10 Castres		41	7	7	3	12	393	432	-39
11 Bourgoin		39	9	7	1	14	385	483	-98
12 Toulon		37	9	6	2	14	338	448	-110
13 Dax		29	7	5	1	16	328	514	-186
14 Mont-de-Marsan		24	6	4	1	17	285	577	-292

The 21st round of the french championship.

For this 21st round, one of the best games of the rugby season took place.
The leader,Toulouse, plays the Stade Français team in his stadium.
During the first match in "Stade de France", Toulouse had vanquished Stade Français at the score of 13-26. Stade Français must won to hope to win this championship.

copyright : Equipe.fr

Lets deals with the result of this turn.

Friday, March27th 2009
20:35	Castres	25-9	Toulon
Saturday, March 28th 2009
14:30	Dax	13-16	Perpignan
	Montauban	19-19	Clermont
	Bourgoin	22-3	Montpellier
	Biarritz	37-7	Mont-de-Marsan
16:30	Brive	13-6	Bayonne
Sunday, March 29th 2009
20:45	Toulouse	15-11	Stade Français

Unsurprisingly, Toulouse won against Stade French 15-11.
For the other matches, Perpignan won against Dax and kept the second place to the championship. With a tie between Clermont and Montauban, they stayed at the 4th place whereas they still have a chance to take the 3th place.

See below the ranking after this turn :

Classement					Pts	W	N	L	+	-	Diff
1.	Toulouse				74	0	4	461	277	184	48
2.	Perpignan				73	1	4	490	308	182	36
3.	Stade Francais				67	1	6	520	331	189	34
4.	Clermont				63	1	8	524	313	211	36
5.	Brive				59	3	6	407	335	72	38
6.	Bayonne				55	2	7	348	393	-45	34
7.	Biarritz				49	0	11	412	339	73	32
8.	Montauban				48	2	10	416	452	-36	34
9.	Montpellier				45	0	11	331	460	-129	28
10.	Castres				37	3	12	370	411	-41	18
11.	Bourgoin				34	1	14	340	477	-137	16
12.	Toulon				33	2	14	305	428	-123	20
13.	Dax				29	1	15	322	471	-149	14
14.	Mont de Marsan				24	1	16	282	533	-251	18

The end of the VI Nation cup.

This last Saturday the 5th and last turn of the VI Nation Cup was played . Ireland was guaranted to win the trophy, but they played for a grand slam, which consist of wining every match.
Regarding France, they played for the second or the third position of this cup.

See below all the results of this turn :

Sunday, 15 March 2009 :

ENGLAND 26 - 12 SCOTLAND
WALES 15 - 17 IRELAND
FRANCE 50 - 8 ITALY

copyright : Equipe.fr

France easily won the match against Italy with 7 touchdowns for France (of which 2 in 6 minutes). They were kicked by Chabal, Trinh-Duc, Medard, Heymans, Domingo and Malzieu. For Italy, Parisse takes a touchdown.
Even with this victory, this cup was a complete failure for France and they finished to the 3rd place.

copyright : irishrugby.ie

Regarding the other matches, England won against Scotland and finished this cup to the second place. Ireland playeda close match until the last minute against Wales. Suddenly, the Irish finished the cup ahead by 10 points and won the second Grand Slam in their history.

Ireland had not won this cup since 1985, and their last grand slam had been won in 1948. It was also the first team which won the Grand Slam after the second World War (more precisely after France rejoigned this cup).

You can listened to an interview from two players of Ireland after the grand slam victory:
Interview of Tommy Browe
Interview of Rob Kearney


You can see below the ranking after this 5th turn :

Team		Pts	D.	V.	N.	D.
1 IRELAND		10	5	5	0	0
2 ENGLAND		4	5	3	0	2
3 FRANCE		4	5	3	0	2
4 WALES		6	5	3	0	2
5 SCOTLAND		2	5	1	0	4
6 ITALY		0	5	0	0	5

Now, I want to deal with the list of prizewinners. This list is exposed below :

	number of cup played	number of victory		number of Grand Slam
England	113	35		12
Walles	115	35		10
France	80	24		8
Scotland	115	22		3
Irland	115	19		2
Italy	10	0		0

Six Nation : England vs France

I want to speak about the game between England and France.
This match was played for the 4th turn of the six Nation Championship in England at Twickenham.
It was won easily by the English (34-10).

See below one of the five touchdowns by England :




I will explain the sequence of the contest.
After 2 minutes of play, England made a touchdown by Cueto.(7-0).After this, the French returned to the game and dominated the English. However, Flood kicked a penalty (10-0) and at 22 minutes, England touchdown by Flutey (17-0). The game continued and at 37 minutes, England made a touchdown again by Armitage and at 40 minutes by Worsley. (29-0).
Then, all players returned to the locker room.
The second half-time was more poised, but England made a touchdown at the 41 minutes by Flutey (34-0). However, France saved their honor and scored at 56 and 63 minutes by Szarzewski and Malzieu.(34-10)
The calvary from France was down. England took the 3rd place and France came down to the 4th place to the ranking.


copyright : L'EQUIPE

See below all the results and the ranking after this round :

Sunday, 15 March 2009
ENGLAND 34 - 10 FRANCE

Saturday, 14 March 2009
ITALY 15 - 20 WALES
SCOTLAND 15 - 22 IRELAND

Team		Pts	D.	V.	N.	D.
1 IRELAND		8	4	4	0	0
2 WALES		6	4	3	0	1
3 ENGLAND		4	4	2	0	2
4 FRANCE		4	4	2	0	2
5 SCOTLAND		2	4	1	0	3
6 ITALY		0	4	0	0	4