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French Fullbacks Post-War

C

Calixte

First Grade
Messages
5,428
Posting on this subject in the "Toulouse for National 1" thread had me thinking about the sheer calibre of French fullbacks just after WWII.

Puig-Aubert (ASC) dominated proceedings and the French national side.

Jean Barreteau (Roanne) was a fairly handy back-up; a majestic player whose career with Roanne and Lavardac reads like a continual scroll of titles nearly year after year.

Teychenne of Toulouse (as mentioned previously) was of exceptional quality in the number 1 jumper.

Francois Nogueres was regarded in 1984 as the greatest ever XIII Catalan fullback in the first 50 years of the club (1934-1984) - his career finishing just after WWII.

Marius Guiral (Villeneuve) was another great pre-WWII fullback who managed to continue their career until just after the conflict. His position at Villenueve being taken by another superb player in Roger Estrada.

Great depth with all six being world class players...
 
L

LeagueXIII

First Grade
Messages
5,966
Who was the fullback who took over from Puig-Aubert when he was ruled out of the 1955 tour with a broken arm?
 
C

Calixte

First Grade
Messages
5,428
The 1955 French touring team started with Gilbert Benausse at fullback for some of the early games. He was principally a 5/8th and one of the all-time greats at that.

He had some poor games early in the tour at fullback and so they switched to Jean Dop, half for the 1951 Tour, for fullback in the 1955 Test series. Dop was mainly playing for Marseille at half at this point too. Some flexibility as a player!

He made rather a better job of it and some might say won them the series with a couple of remarkable performances in Tests 2 and 3.

The story of Test 2 must be the all-time best Test story ever. Bar nothing -except perhaps Prescott's broken arm...

The selected fullbacks for the 1955 Tour were Benausse and Dop, with Delpoux, Rey and Ducasse as backup. You needed it with all those games back then.
 
C

Calixte

First Grade
Messages
5,428
Should probably add re- Marius Guiral that he was a pre-War Test captain for France in rugby league.
 
D

dallymessenger

Coach
Messages
10,970
the stories about albert smoking during games is hilarious.

my knowledge of the side which beat australia in the 1950s is poor but someone told me a fullback in that team was the best hed ever seen.
 
C

Calixte

First Grade
Messages
5,428
Regrettably, some of the yarns about Puig-Aubert have tended to diminish his legacy as a truly great player - one of the best to ever play TGG...
 
G

Girondin

Juniors
Messages
139
Calixte said:
That section of footage, which I might add has found its way there courtesy of YT, hardly features him.
Click to expand...
Agreed. You don't see him run the ball much on this tape. But there's so little footage available from that period. Still an enjoyable video me think.
 
G

Girondin

Juniors
Messages
139
ParraEelsNRL said:
You mean like the Union fundamentalists I posted about earlier in TFC where I quoted the forbidden game?
Click to expand...
I quite liked that post but didn't reply on TFC as there was another "discussion" on between Calixte and Clive Woody... I agreed with pretty much everything you said. Maybe not on the "Union was crumbling in Australia" part, as I think the inaugural RL game and the previous Australia-NZ shortly before got huge crowds which shows the interest in the sport at the time. But I agree it had come to a point where it needed to turn pro to fend off the AFL.

I have no problems with hardcore League fans not liking union as a sport or as an organisation. I have a problem with the hostile attitude towards RU fans who have nothing to do with what happened in the past. I started following RU, then developped a strong interest in League without stopping following union. I don't see why I should make a choice.

I don't know if you're a poster on rugbyforumxiii, I often read it. However I don't post on it as:
i) you can't be on every forum
ii) there's too much hostility towards dual code supporters

But to give you an idea of what I would post I greatly share the views of DonBilly there who, coming from a RU background and with an open mind, discovered League and got interested. Like 99% of current French union fans, he (and I) are just sports fans who had nothing to do with what RU did/should not have done to RL.

What "League fundamentalism" does is put off union fans who otherwise might well become League supporters. If you go to USAP's forum there are several "sh*t stirring" Dragons fans who are seriously damaging the Dragons' cause. Meanwhile you'll notice no USAP fan ever comes on rugbyforumxiii to insult the locals. So there is nowhere near as much hostility towards RL in France as some posters (who live in the past) seem to think. Meanwhile some Leaguies there should take a good look at themselves and wonder if their bigotry is not actually doing harm to the game they love.

I'd say 2/3 of posters there are in a "state of war" mindset, 1/3 are aware of this and try to moderate the others, and 1 or 2 dual code lovers are... bewildered.
 
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ParraEelsNRL

ParraEelsNRL

Referee
Messages
27,694
Girondin said:
I quite liked that post but didn't reply on TFC as there was another "discussion" on between Calixte and Clive Woody... I agreed with pretty much everything you said. Maybe not on the "Union was crumbling in Australia" part, as I think the inaugural RL game and the previous Australia-NZ shortly before got huge crowds which shows the interest in the sport at the time. But I agree it had come to a point where it needed to turn pro to fend off the AFL.
Click to expand...

All could've been very different if the people running RU done things the right way back in 1895, "Rugby" actually could have been a genuine world game now, not a pretend world game played to a decent level in a dozen countries or so.(Union and League).

If you want to learn about the sporting history in the early days of Australia in regards to RL/RU/AFL, Sean Fagan has a great site worth looking at.

http://www.rl1908.com/

Girondin said:
I have no problems with hardcore League fans not liking union as a sport or as an organisation. I have a problem with the hostile attitude towards RU fans who have nothing to do with what happened in the past. I started following RU, then developped a strong interest in League without stopping following union. I don't see why I should make a choice.
Click to expand...

Most here are hardcore, the fact is, over the years, Union people have used every trick in the book to put down RL and its fans, over in England, all the Union so called reporters get to mouth off on a national level whenever they like and write absolute rubbish about Rugby League, they also get to do the same either on TV or radio.

Out here in Australia, it is very different because we have a thing called "a fair go", that means everyone gets a go, if it's right or popular, it stays, if it's not, it goes, but don't say you never got a fair go.

Union hasn't been able to get away with the things they do in other countries because we have this thing called "a fair go", if they were to try and do anything like what happens in other countries, the only thing they'd end up hurting would be themselves.

Now that's not to say the Union mob out here don't say and do stuff, it just means the other sport (League) can actually fight back because the game is popular and it has a voice.

Since 1995 when the union game decided to pay tax and put money into bank accounts instead of boots, the noise from them in Australia has gotten louder, but it's mostly from arseholes like Spiro Zavos who is a kiwi anyway and other idiots like Peter Fitzsimons, there would be about 6 Union journalists (if you can call them that) out here with a voice, but the union code is pretty minor so no one believes them anyway unless they follow Union or they follow AFL and hate Rugby League.


Girondin said:
I don't know if you're a poster on rugbyforumxiii, I often read it. However I don't post on it as:
i) you can't be on every forum
ii) there's too much hostility towards dual code supporters
Click to expand...

Yes, I pop in there a few times a week, but I very rarely post as I don't speak French.

Girondin said:
But to give you an idea of what I would post I greatly share the views of DonBilly there who, coming from a RU background and with an open mind, discovered League and got interested. Like 99% of current French union fans, he (and I) are just sports fans who had nothing to do with what RU did/should not have done to RL.
Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with that, I follow other sports too.

I agree that the supporters in France who had nothing to do with Vichy shouldn't be held responsible for something they didn't do, what I don't agree with is the FFR themselves.

Girondin said:
What "League fundamentalism" does is put off union fans who otherwise might well become League supporters. If you go to USAP's forum there are several "sh*t stirring" Dragons fans who are seriously damaging the Dragons' cause. Meanwhile you'll notice no USAP fan ever comes on rugbyforumxiii to insult the locals. So there is nowhere near as much hostility towards RL in France as some posters (who live in the past) seem to think. Meanwhile some Leaguies there should take a good look at themselves and wonder if their bigotry is not actually doing harm to the game they love.
Click to expand...

I've been to USAP's forum and I have seen a couple of RL trolls at work.

I've also seen some Union fans at that very site who froth at the mouth if RL is mentioned, there is one chap who only even says "Game of 13", he seems like a real arsehole, I wish I could speak French at times so I could shut him and his lies up.

I know what you are talking about with trolls (I'm a troll at a certain AFL site :lol:), I have seen a few at Rugbyforumxiii, but not many. I have gone to heaps of French "Rugby" forums looking for the tiniest bit of RL talk and I have seen some funny stuff written about RL, the France2 site seems to go off a fair bit with supporters of both codes throwing hand grinades frequently. :D

http://forums.france2.fr/france2/rugby/liste_sujet-1.htm

Girondin said:
I'd say 2/3 of posters there are in a "state of war" mindset, 1/3 are aware of this and try to moderate the others, and 1 or 2 dual code lovers are... bewildered.
Click to expand...

I think that sums up every Rugby League/Union site on the web, I have yet to find a Union site that doesn't have people trashing League, and I haven't come across a League site that doesn't trash Union.

I think both sets of fans would be lost without the other, it would get boring without all the flamming and Wars erupting ;-)

I personally love putting sh*t on rugby union :lol:
 
G

Girondin

Juniors
Messages
139
ParraEelsNRL said:
All could've been very different if the people running RU done things the right way back in 1895, "Rugby" actually could have been a genuine world game now, not a pretend world game played to a decent level in a dozen countries or so.(Union and League).

If you want to learn about the sporting history in the early days of Australia in regards to RL/RU/AFL, Sean Fagan has a great site worth looking at.

http://www.rl1908.com/
Click to expand...
The website is well-documented however I wouldn't call it unbiased ;-)
Re rugby becoming a world game had the scenario been different, it's a question I sometimes ask myself. What if?? Maybe we'd all be playing American Football.

What I think however is that RL should have done that job themselves. Imo the relatively limited spread of RL to this day (as you said maybe it will change with the likes of Lebanon etc - but union is growing at a faster rate) has a lot to do with the lack of vision of the RL administrators. Ok, let's take out the South of England and South Africa where RL was clearly not welcome, still there were some 180 odd countries to bring the game to.

In the UK and France, a tournament should have been created to counter-balance the 5 Nations. Wales was there for the taking, France and England RL were more powerful than their union counterparts. And as far as I know, Scotland is not too far from the North of England, some efforts should have been made there. Too easy to lay all the blame on the other code.

I've been to USAP's forum and I have seen a couple of RL trolls at work.

I've also seen some Union fans at that very site who froth at the mouth if RL is mentioned, there is one chap who only even says "Game of 13", he seems like a real arsehole, I wish I could speak French at times so I could shut him and his lies up.
Click to expand...
Ok but this guy - whatever his feelings are towards RL - is on a union website, his favourite team's at that, and then some RL troll pops up to tell him "your team is sh*t" so hard to blame him for reacting :D

I think both sets of fans would be lost without the other, it would get boring without all the flamming and Wars erupting ;-)
Click to expand...
You had me meditating a few minutes on this one... Maybe all this had to happen to bring balance to the force... Or for the mystics, here is League and Union for you:
http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/images/yin-yang.jpg
 
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D

dallymessenger

Coach
Messages
10,970
ParraEelsNRL said:
All could've been very different if the people running RU done things the right way back in 1895, "Rugby" actually could have been a genuine world game now, not a pretend world game played to a decent level in a dozen countries or so.(Union and League).

If you want to learn about the sporting history in the early days of Australia in regards to RL/RU/AFL, Sean Fagan has a great site worth looking at.

http://www.rl1908.com/



Most here are hardcore, the fact is, over the years, Union people have used every trick in the book to put down RL and its fans, over in England, all the Union so called reporters get to mouth off on a national level whenever they like and write absolute rubbish about Rugby League, they also get to do the same either on TV or radio.

Out here in Australia, it is very different because we have a thing called "a fair go", that means everyone gets a go, if it's right or popular, it stays, if it's not, it goes, but don't say you never got a fair go.

Union hasn't been able to get away with the things they do in other countries because we have this thing called "a fair go", if they were to try and do anything like what happens in other countries, the only thing they'd end up hurting would be themselves.

Now that's not to say the Union mob out here don't say and do stuff, it just means the other sport (League) can actually fight back because the game is popular and it has a voice.

Since 1995 when the union game decided to pay tax and put money into bank accounts instead of boots, the noise from them in Australia has gotten louder, but it's mostly from arseholes like Spiro Zavos who is a kiwi anyway and other idiots like Peter Fitzsimons, there would be about 6 Union journalists (if you can call them that) out here with a voice, but the union code is pretty minor so no one believes them anyway unless they follow Union or they follow AFL and hate Rugby League.




Yes, I pop in there a few times a week, but I very rarely post as I don't speak French.



Nothing wrong with that, I follow other sports too.

I agree that the supporters in France who had nothing to do with Vichy shouldn't be held responsible for something they didn't do, what I don't agree with is the FFR themselves.



I've been to USAP's forum and I have seen a couple of RL trolls at work.

I've also seen some Union fans at that very site who froth at the mouth if RL is mentioned, there is one chap who only even says "Game of 13", he seems like a real arsehole, I wish I could speak French at times so I could shut him and his lies up.

I know what you are talking about with trolls (I'm a troll at a certain AFL site :lol:), I have seen a few at Rugbyforumxiii, but not many. I have gone to heaps of French "Rugby" forums looking for the tiniest bit of RL talk and I have seen some funny stuff written about RL, the France2 site seems to go off a fair bit with supporters of both codes throwing hand grinades frequently. :D

http://forums.france2.fr/france2/rugby/liste_sujet-1.htm



I think that sums up every Rugby League/Union site on the web, I have yet to find a Union site that doesn't have people trashing League, and I haven't come across a League site that doesn't trash Union.

I think both sets of fans would be lost without the other, it would get boring without all the flamming and Wars erupting ;-)

I personally love putting sh*t on rugby union :lol:
Click to expand...

spot on
 
C

Calixte

First Grade
Messages
5,428
There is still no accountability in France for what happened and continues to happen. Until that occurs, the shouting will continue...
 
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