Mehrtens, Pichot jobless in France
Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:17
The Ligue Nationale de Rugby, which runs professional rugby in France, has published the list of players previously contracted to Top 14 or Pro D2 clubs who are now out of contract and have till 10 September to find clubs.
Amongst there number are the great All Black flyhalf Andrew Mehrtens and the great Puma scrumhalf Agustín Pichot. Last season they were both in Pro D2, Mehrtens playing for recently promoted Toulon and Pichot for Racing Métro who just missed out on promotion.
Some of the players are foreigners.
Blagnac and Limoges feature largely because they were bot demoted to amateur rugby for next season.
The players listed by the LNR as being without clubs are as follows:
France: scrumhalf Boris Bouhraoua of Limoges (24), wing/fullback François Beaugendre of Limoges (26), centre Arnaud Bousquet of Béziers (24), centre Sébastien Bonetti of Limoges (31), loose forward Cyrille Charrier of Limoges (28), scrumhalf Fabio Da Silva of Lyon (22), centre Guillaume Delmotte of Tarbes (31), wing Yoann Desseme of Oyonnax (25), centre Mathieu Ladame of Limoges (25), scrumhalf Benoit Marfaing of Bayonne (25), scrumhalf Grégory Mahe of Brive (27), wing Yannick Ngog of Agen (26), wing Julien Patey of Blagnac (24), loose forward Vincent Sohet of Blagnac (26), hooker Nicolas Sentous of Auch (28), loose forward Pierre Som of Agen (27), hooker Nicolas Sisombath of Tarbes (24)
Argentina: wing Juan Martin Berberian of Blagnac (31), prop Juan Battilana of Tarbes (27), prop Ignacio Elosu of Tarbes (26), tighthead prop Augustin Loprestti of Bayonne (34), scrumhalf Augustin Pichot of Racing Métro (34), prop Daniel Rodriguez of Lyon (30)
Canada: fullback Mike Pyke of Montauban (24)
New Zealand: flyhalf Andrew Mehrtens of Toulon (35)
Portugal: tighthead prop André Da Silva of Mont-de-Marsan (33)Romania: loosehead prop Dragos Dima of Pau (29), prop Cézar Popescu of Agen (32)
Samoa: centre Terry Fanolua of Brive (34)
Senegal: lock Magname Koita of Limoges (34)
South Africa: lock Henk Eksteen of Narbonne (28), centre Thinus van Rensburg of Narbonne (26), tighthead prop Hedley Wessels of Dax (33)
Spain: hooker Mathieu Cidre of Blagnac (27)
