David SKRELA

Biog of David SKRELA :

David Skrela was not given much opportunity to show what he could do by Lièvremont in 2010. He came on for just nine short minutes against Fiji at Nantes in November, before packing his bags and leaving the field clear for the experiment of playing Traille at fly-half in the absence of the number one, Trinh-Duc; and he was granted nine minutes in the match against the Springboks in June. All this despite the fact that, at 31 years of age, the Toulouse number 10 had never looked so self-assured. Returning from a long injury (operation on his right knee, arthritis) at the end of 2009, he showed his full potential in the final phases of the 2010 European Cup that ended with Toulouse’s fourth European title. From the quarter-finals onwards Skrela scored 71% of his team’s points: 27 out of 42 against Stade Français, 21 out of 26 against Leinster and 15 out of 21 in the final against Biarritz. And from then on his good form continued although he was not rewarded on the international stage until his recall for the 2011 Sixth Nations tournament, which he was forced to decline due to injury. The left calf muscle strain did not stop Skrela coming back to play in the later stages of the 2010-2011 Top 14 with Stade Toulousain and, despite a surprisingly low kick-to-goal success ratio (3 out of eight) in the Top 14 final against Montpellier, win a third Brennus Shield. A few weeks earlier, David Skrela had signed a three-year contract at Clermont and had been selected as the second fly half for the World Cup in New Zealand.

This all took place almost fifteen years after his debut full of promise at Colomiers at the end of the 1990s. David Skrela, son of Jean-Claude, the former international and ex-Toulouse player and coach, and France selector* at the time, played in a European Cup final (lost) against Ulster in 1999, a French Championship final (also lost) against Stade Français the following year, before earning his first cap for France against New Zealand in Christchurch in June 2001 (37-12 defeat, scoring 12 points). Thirty years after his father’s first cap! Before this baptism, the young 22-year-old declared, “A good fly-half is one who knows how to anticipate and supply decent ball for his teammates. For that to happen you have to be able to read the game and that takes time and a lot of matches.” He did not realise how true this was. It would be five and a half years before he would next wear the French shirt.

Between times, with a civil engineering qualification (INSA Toulouse 2003) in his pocket, he had left his first club to bolster the ranks of Stade Français and at long last experience full-time professional rugby. But he had not counted on the competition from the Italo-Argentinian veteran, Diego Dominguez who, at 37 years of age, would play more than half of the 2004 Top 16 final victory over Perpignan, leaving the young pretender with just 25 minutes of game time. But Skrela learnt from his elder, a world class kicker. “Diego takes his time before kicking,” he explained. “He looks at the posts, he concentrates, his run-up is always the same. Things I never did.” But which he did from then on. In 2005, Galthié’s first season at the helm, Skrela was the starting fly-half in the two finals disputed by Stade Français that year. Stade Français lost to Biarritz in the French Championship final (37-34, Skrela scoring 26 points) and to Toulouse in the European Cup (18-12, scoring all 12 points), both after extra time. Galthié, his teammate at Colomiers and now his coach, described him at the time as, “an altruistic player who sacrifices himself for the others”. Some would say too much when you see how committed he is in defence.

And then it was 2007 and the Six Nations tournament, seven months before the World Cup in France. Injuries to both Michalak and Boyet, and Laporte putting an end to his experiment of playing Traille at ten, led to a recall for Skrela who had slimmed down over the summer and gained in explosive power. He was picked with Pierre Mignoni, another player making a comeback, forming a 9-10 combination that was untried at the international level - although the pair had learnt all of the moves from the charts they stuck on the walls of the room they shared at the National Rugby Centre at Marcoussis! The gamble paid off and the two men, having played against each other in the Top 14 final (won by Stade Français against Clermont with Skrela at inside centre), were picked for the 2007 World Cup opener against Argentina - a stunning defeat (12-17) which they did not really recover from.

Marc Lièvremont, the newly-appointed coach, recalled Skrela in 2008 for his first Six Nations tournament in charge, and rotated him with Trinh-Duc up until Skrela’s disastrous performance against Australia at the Stade de France in November of the same year. Skrela missed five of his six attempts at goal and earned a yellow card in the 13-18 defeat. “I feel entirely responsible,” he declared. He had just left the capital to join Stade Toulousain and pick up the threads of a family story started by his father thirty years before. It was a time of adapting to a new style of play he had heard so much about, a time of injuries as well, that led him to drop out of the French June 2009 tour. Skrela had to wait until June and then November 2010 before he was back with the national side again and since then he has been in and out of the team. Will the World Cup give Skrela more opportunity to express himself?

* He has been National Technical Director of the French Rugby Federation since 2003.