Mathieu BASTAREAUD

Biog of Mathieu BASTAREAUD :

Mathieu Bastareaud must have believed the slate had been wiped clean, or almost, at the end of the match at Murrayfield on 7 February 2010. Bastareaud scored twice, his only international tries to date, in the French victory over Scotland that in hindsight proved to be the first step on the way to the ninth Grand Slam in Tricolores history. Could he have wished for more on his return to the French team?

The superhuman Bastareaud, who exploded onto the international scene one year earlier, was brought back down to earth with a bang in the summer of 2009. He was at the heart of a scandal French rugby could have done without: the fabrication – an invented attack - of a story to explain the facial injuries sustained late in the night following the second test against the All Blacks, in which he had played no part. Nobody knew what had really happened (or so they claimed), neither the Prime Ministers of the two countries involved who each took their turn to apologise as the story evolved, nor the Wellington Police, nor the French Federation disciplinary committee that nevertheless suspended the young Stade Français player for 90 days, later commuted to community service, for “conduct prejudicial to the interests of rugby”.

So Bastareaud was not considered for the 2009 November tests, but by 2010 his career was back on the course that it should never have left. A course that started in his teens, in the Paris suburbs when, at 16 years of age, he left Creteil for Massy. At 1.83m and almost 110 kilos (he weighs nearly 120 kilos today) the young Bastareaud could have played prop, but he played centre instead. He spent a season at the National Rugby Centre at Marcoussis and became a member of the Massy first team at 18 years of age, playing in the Féderale 1 division. But for a knee injury, he might have become a sensation when in May 2007 Bernard Laporte included him in the squad to tour New Zealand (that did not include any players involved in the semi-finals of the Top 14). Bastareaud must have shown great potential to attract the attention of the selectors, so young and playing so far from the top level.

That summer Bastareaud should have joined Agen but as the club from the Lot and Garonne was relegated to the Pro D2 he signed instead for Stade Français, the reigning French champions - a logical choice for someone from the Paris suburbs. His first taste of the Top 14 came at Toulouse in November 2007, aged 19, given his chance by Fabien Galthié. He sweated blood to reach the level necessary to play professional rugby, and to add to his one-dimensional physical game he started working on his technique. Emile Ntamack, France’s assistant coach in charge of the three-quarters, commenting on the occasion of Bastareaud’s first cap in February 2009, summed up, “Bastareaud reminds me of Jonah Lomu. But when you’re faced with Lomu, you never know whether he is going to try to go straight through you or round you. Mathieu needs to learn to create more doubt in the minds of the defence.”

For his first appearance (France/Wales at the Stade de France), he marked his presence with two massive hits on his opponents. He lasted the full 80 minutes and looked to have cemented his place in the French team for the long term. “We’ve had very few players of his kind in France,” says Jo Maso, manager of the Tricolores - undeniably true. His technical ability is improving every day and he is still extremely powerful, capable of carrying the opposition on his back or holding them at arm’s length (at Stade Français he has the best statistics for all weight-lifting exercises using the legs), but he can now also pass out of the tackle, give the ball at the right time, use the boot and find the gap.

Although Bastareaud played in every round of the 2010 Grand Slam winning campaign alongside the great Yannick Jauzion (only ceding his place in the starting line-up to David Marty for the match against Italy), and would have gone on the June tour but for a hamstring injury (officially), he was not selected for the November 2010 tests and the following Six Nations Tournament, deemed to be lacking fitness and not making enough effort to rectify the situation. Has Lièvremont really got such strength in depth that he can do without Bastareaud in 2011?