Olivier BROUZET

Biog of Olivier BROUZET :

At 21 years of age, Olivier Brouzet was already playing in the “pack of mammoths”, as Jacques Fouroux’s Grenoble forwards were known, and that about sums him up. Born in Beziers in 1972 at a time when A.S. Beziers’s own group of heavyweights had dominated the French Championship over the last ten years or so, he came to prominence twenty years later at the aforementioned FC Grenoble, a club characterised by its enormous forward pack and rolling mauls. In his first French Championship final in 1993 at the Parc des Princes (on the losing side against Castres), the young Brouzet packed down alongside another Olivier, Merle or Merluche as he was known, the 1.98m, 125kg French second row international. Brouzet himself measured over 2m (2.04m) and weighed around 120kg without an ounce of fat on him. He came from good stock - his father was the French record holder for hammer throwing.

Before long he was also Merle’s partner in the French team with his first cap coming in the victory at Murrayfield in the 1994 Five Nations tournament. Brouzet’s massive frame would wear the blue shirt a further 71 times. In the good years, he formed an unbeatable lock combination with Fabien Pelous*. In harder times he looked on while better players than he took the field ahead of him, as was the case for the majority of the three World Cup finals which he was selected for: Merle-Roumat in 1995, Benazzi-Pelous in 1999 and Pelous-Thion in 2003. When speaking of the 1999 World Cup - and it was certainly valid for 1995 and 2003 World Cups as well - coach Jean-Claude Skrela, who included Brouzet in his plans during the whole of his four year tenure at the head of the French team, said “ Olivier Brouzet, after overcoming a lot of physical niggles, could have had his place in the second row of any team participating in the World Cup. Unfortunately, he played for the only team that possessed two phenomenal players: Fabien Pelous and Abdelatif Benazzi. France was blessed with the three best second row forwards in the world.”**

Brouzet’s career suffered from several periods of injury (1997, 2001). An operation for a disc hernia in 1996 robbed him of a 1997 Grand Slam, for example, although he played in the vast majority of the 1998 (4/4 starts) and 2002 (4/5) Grand Slams. As replacement he also participated in some of the great moments of French rugby history including the test victory in Auckland in 1994, which gave les Bleus the first series win on New Zealand soil, and the legendary 1999 World Cup semi-final victory, also against the All Blacks. Brouzet brought an end to his international career after the 2003 World Cup during which he injured a shoulder. In 2005, he was to hang up his boots definitively following his second unsuccessful French Championship final, with Stade Français this time, against Biarritz (37-34 after extra time, he came on in the 70th minute). In the same year he was also a European Cup finalist.

Today, Olivier Brouzet is a consultant for Orange Sport and marketing manager for the Union Sportive Bordeaux Bègles in the Pro D2 championship (he played for Bègles between 1996 and 2000). He also runs a company specialising in the development of childcare facilities and in public relations for sporting events.

* Brouzet and Pelous played 54 times together for France: 31 times starting together in the second row, 7 times with Brouzet in the second row and Pelous at number eight, 4 times with Pelous as replacement and 12 times as replacement with Pelous starting in the second row.

** Le tournant du jeu, Grasset publications, p.261