The accent is on unpredictability

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 52

The accent is on unpredictability

JOHN BROOKS

compiles a beginner’s guide

to a rugby tour of France

Now that the New Zealand Rugby Union has ensured that the 10 Cavaliers still in favour will not be asked any awkward questions, for the moment, the All Blacks will set off boldly today for their tour of France.

It is to be hoped that the union has not limited its tour preparations to warning the players off such words as “Rainbow Warrior” and “Mururoa.” The course to follow when arranging a rugby tour of France is to make careful plans, and then throw them away and play everything by ear.

This is because the most predictable thing about such an expedition is that most arrangements will go wrong.

At the core of the muddlement are two people called liaison officers. They are a necessary evil. They are both French, and can usually be found in the bar. Their brief is to smooth the path of the visiting team, but more than likely they will induce apoplexy among touring managers. Ron Don almost burst a blood vessel in 1977 over the lethargy of one of the liaison officers. Jean

Tourvielle. The other, Jacques Fel, got even more offside with the New Zealanders through first giving a referee a vigorous demonstration of how the All Black forwards stomped on prostrate rivals and then taking, two days off to visit his daughter.

The urbane Mr Fel turned up again in 1981, but his inaction on training and travel arrange-

ments eventually led to a frustrated New Zealand management requesting his removal. The cunning French promptly replaced him with Jean Gabriel, who delivered the All Blacks to La Rochelle airport an hour after the Paris plane had departed. The players were almost chanting, ‘‘come back Jacques Fel — all is forgiven.”

There are, however,

many other pitfalls to be avoided on a tour of France. Even more schizophrenic than liaison officers are the home referees, a complex lot. There are always difficulties over obtaining suitable food, accommodation can range from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the receptions are never ending, mainly because French officials love making long and boring

speeches. To the New Zealand gaze, French referees often seem to possess red, white and blue eyeballs. The ’Bl side, for instance, was reduced almost to hysteria by a theatrical fellow called Jean-Claude Doulcet, who adhered to a set of rules totally unknown in the Antipodes. The 1953 All Blacks fell foul of a clerical referee named Paddi with the score at eight-all and time up in a match at Bordeaux. Vince Bevan, the half-back, was penalised at a scrum. When he asked for the nature of the offence he was told that crooked feeding was not permitted. "Ah ha,” said Bevan, holding the ball under the referee’s nose, “I haven’t put the bloody thing in yet.”

“Ho ho,” replied Father Paddi, “I’m penalising you for answering back.” Even imported referees can catch the fever. A strawberry-topped Irishman named Tony O’Sullivan, from Limerick, ladled out penalties willynilly against the All Blacks in Bayonne in 1977; the count was something like 22 to 10. When some of the New Zealand players remonstrated with him that evening he replied in all seriousness, “I have to get out of this town in one piece, you know.” If Alan Jones thought that a certain Thames Valley hotel was unsuitable for his Wallabies, he would be leading walkouts from at least half the team accommodation in France. Players can be quartered in a plush establishment such as the Agora, in Bayonne, one week and a draughty seventeenth century relic like the Chateau de Ligneres, in Agen, the next. This was the old stone building which was so cold at nights that Gary Knight pulled down some drapes and wrapped himself like a mummy for extra warmth. The food, too, is a worry for people involved in a vigorous sport. “Frittes” are served with all main courses, except ' trout, and one cynical New Zealander remarked, “I really believe that the man who wrote ’Chips with Everything’ was French.” The wine is cheap, and there’s plenty of it. Most All Blacks get weaned on to the vin rouge through an earnest desire to wash away the effects of frogs legs or barbecued snails at the French equivalent of Bluff’s beer and oysters soirees. In any case, bottled lager is very expensive, and when two New Zealanders ordered a third round in a quaint little pub named Le Trois Pilliers (the three props) in Angouleme, the proprietor exclaimed “Mon Dieu — tres bier!” He then recorded this apparently extraordinary happening in his diary. All Blacks since Dave Gallaher’s day have been warned about the lure of the ladies of the evening. They are especially difficult to evade in Paris, because they scorch around the streets in Citroens.

The ’B6 team will not be playing in the French capital, but it does have a test appointment in Toulouse, where the mesdemoiselles wear hooped football socks pulled up to the kneecaps as a subtle piece of marketing. No country could ever contemplate a long rugby tour of France because the wear and tear on the players would be unbearable. Opposition teams are invariably strong — in 1977, for instance, the Narbonne and Beziers clubs in the south-east had 14 internationals between them — the players all wear French national jerseys, and it is not uncommon for a couple of test players to appear a few days later for France B.

All sides have at least one forward resembling and acting like Attila the Hun, and others who go into rucks as if they were treading grapes. In addition, all sides have a centre possessed of the footwork of Fred Astaire, and a fly half or full-back who can kick goals from distances up to 60m. If he is related to the referee, this can be a big factor in the result. Visiting forwards need to be tough, for the French occasionally resort to such tricks as gouging, trampling, or delivering a stiff-armed throat-stopper known as “le cravat.” For props and hookers there is the added hazard of whiffs of garlic-flavoured breath from the opposition.

Alain Plantefol was injudicious enough to boot Colin Meads in the head in the Paris test of 1967, a happening of which he was reminded by two New Zealanders in Pierre’s watering hole in Agen many years later. “Non, non,” protested Plantefol. “It was not me.”

But his colleague, Roland Benesis, laughed heartily. “Alain has been dining out on the story of how he felled the mighty Pinetree for years,” he said.

One other item the All Blacks must be prepared for is the noise. French spectators are loudly parochial, and the din is deafening, even for such trifling occurrences as the awarding of a scrum feed to the home side. It is difficult for visiting footballers to play their normal game with cockerels cavorting along the sidelines, fireworks exploding, and the beret-topped bourgeoisie booing, whistling and chanting “allez bleu."

Players eventually become used to requests for photographs at the most awkward times, and learn to set aside at least two hours for interviews, because some French journalists write extraordinarily long stories. A rugby tour of France is a mind-boggling, bruising, exciting and exhausting experience. Most All Blacks, once they have returned home and peeled the plaster from their wounds, claim that they would jump at the chance of going back one day.

“But next time,” they say feelingly, “it will be as a supporter.”