EUROPEAN CHALLENGE CUP FOCUS ON TOULON:Affluence and ambition don't guarantee instant success, even with Tana Umaga in the van. Robert Kitsonreports
THE MEDITERRANEAN coast looked ravishing this week but the bags under Tana Umaga's eyes are not those of a man of leisure
"Come into my office," muttered the former All Black captain, heading out into the sunshine to sit on the concrete stairs at Toulon's unpretentious training ground. His club's story is a cautionary one of money, greed, passion and rugby football, mostly in that order. It is also a saga still awaiting a happy ending.
Little wonder Umaga resembles a diner who has ordered the veal and been supplied with a blunt knife, a dirty apron and a live calf. It is almost the second anniversary of his initial foray to the south of France yet he is still dictating postcards from the edge of reason. Never in the short history of professional rugby union has any club attempted to reinvent itself more radically than Toulon.
Initially a stream of galacticos - Victor Matfield, George Gregan, Anton Oliver, Andrew Mehrtens et al - were hired to hoist the team out of the French second division. All have gone, to be replaced by a new raft of signings, 18 in all, including the New Zealand league sensation Sonny Bill Williams, Jerry Collins and Joe van Niekerk. Club officials do not deny that, after Perpignan offered Dan Carter €633,000 for a six-month contract, preliminary contact was made with Jonny Wilkinson's advisers.
Amid all this instability sits Umaga, a relative coaching novice who, reportedly, is about to be replaced by the former Wallaby coach John Connolly. In many ways Toulon epitomise the costly craze sweeping the Top 14.
The salary cap of just over €5 million in England is small beer by comparison. Toulouse's approved playing budget is in the region of €31 million. Clermont and Stade Français are not far behind. And in fourth place, with almost €19 million, are Toulon, a newly promoted side whose last domestic title was in 1992.
If anywhere is immune to la crise du crédit it would seem to be French club rugby.
This Gallic soap opera is also creating ripples far beyond France's second-largest naval port. This season there are 207 overseas-born players in the Top 14, including 43 foreign props. At this rate there will soon be no half-decent Kiwis, Springboks or Wallabies left at home, even if Les Varois were missing most of their foreign legion against Northampton last night in the opening game of the European Challenge Cup, which showed as they were beaten by 56-3.
The Toulon president, Mourad Boudjellal, a multi-millionaire publisher of comic books, prefers his dream team to focus on the domestic front. This is the same Boudjellal who drives fast cars, dresses only in black and shoots from the lip. He described one narrow defeat as "the most shameful defensive bonus point in the history of rugby".
He also has a penchant for signing players without his coach's knowledge. "There's been quite a few of them," said Umaga with a sigh. "Let's just say the president is not backward in coming forward . . . He does what he does and we've just got to live with it, for now."
Eleventh place in the Top 14 after seven games, though, is enough to make any ambitious owner twitchy. Toulon's aim this season is consolidation. Relegation again would be a civic disaster.
"Until you come here you don't understand it," said Umaga. "The people are fanatical. Talk to them about religion and they say 'Rugby Toulonnais is my religion'."
They are not alone. Montpellier, Racing Paris, Brive, even third-division Nice have splashed the cash to lure Dan Luger, Kevin Yates and Will Johnson, Martin's younger brother, to the Côte d'Azur. It is easy to see why: only here could residents complain about unseasonable cold while, yards away, wives and girlfriends sunbathe topless on the beach.
But is the dream sustainable? Toulon still believe so.
"We did want Carter and he was very close to coming," said Tom Whitford, once of Richmond and Cambridge University and now Toulon's team manager. "I've no idea about Wilkinson. I'm sure Mourad has spoken to him but he speaks to lots of agents."
Umaga, if consulted, will demand new recruits do not simply come for the money. "You can't be thinking 'Yeah, I'm going to come over to the south of France and soak up some rays'."
For some, though, the novelty will never fade. Philip Fitzgerald could walk unrecognised through his native Scotland but during his 11-year stint in Toulon the hooker has known infinitely harsher times. "We had three or four tricky years in the second division when no one wanted to know us. I remember we beat one of the lower teams, there was hardly anyone in the ground and we'd just had our salaries cut. To cheer ourselves up we opened champagne in the dressingroom."
After the club had been relegated again in 2005-2006, Boudjellal's impact took "Fitzy" and friends entirely by surprise. "When reports started appearing in the paper about Tana Umaga turning up we thought it was absolute nonsense."
The question now, of course, is how much longer Umaga will remain. The players like him but they don't pay the bills.
"You'd hope it is sustainable but it comes down to the decisions of one man," said Umaga. "He's said he's going to stick around for three years and we've got to hope that's right."
But, as Fitzgerald stresses, money alone is insufficient. "There is no magic wand. In the long term a rugby team needs a collective force and a bond, a spirit of fraternity and trust."
The moral of the Toulon story? A successful rugby club does not materialise overnight like a tub of winter pansies.
Guardian Service
