New season starts in France
Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:27
In France the new season of the Top 14 starts on Tuesday with new teams, new laws and new regulations.
The two "new" teams are Toulon and Mont-de-Marsan. They have been promoted but they have been there before. In fact both have been French champions in the past, Toulon as recently as 1992.
The new laws are the experimental law variations which kicked off on 1 August. The French teams have been playing with them in friendlies and on 21 August there was a meeting of coaches, referees and rugby officials at Marcoussis to discuss the ELVs. Former Test referees René Hourquet, who is now France's refereeing boss, and Joël Dumé led the discussion on the ELVs.
Jean-Louis Luneau in charge of the coaches' union thought that the ELVs would bring innovation back into French rugby and would benefit teams that played positively, such as Toulouse, Clermont Auvergne and Stade Français but would punish more negative sides.
In addition independent citing commissioners have been introduced and there will also be an increase in the number of replacements to 23. This will help to counter two obvious problems in French rugby - violence and uncontested scrums.
uncontested scrums were a problem last season. Now the bench will be increased to 23. Teams will be required to have a hooker and two props amongst the 23 players on the bench, one more prop than usually happens.
The season opens not Tuesday, not because it is a public holiday or anything of that nature but because of the cluttered nature of the French season. The Top 14 has 26 pool matches plus semifinals and final. The Heineken Cup has six pool matches plus quarterfinals, semifinals and a final. There are 10 or more Test matches. Then there are the rest weeks for players. It means there are fewer weekends available than there are weekends in the year. As it is some championship matches will be played when Test matches are on.
For this reason there will be two rounds this week - on Tuesday and again on Saturday.
