Aurélien ROUGERIE

Biog of Aurélien ROUGERIE :

Picture Aurélien Rougerie at the age of 21, swept-back hair, lifting Jason Robinson, the sparkling English fullback, and driving him backwards. It was 2 March 2002 at the Stade de France and by overcoming England, les Bleus had taken a big step towards winning the Grand Slam. Aurélien Rougerie, 1.94m, 94kg and John Kirwan-esque looks, stood out from the crowd. He was part of the up-and-coming generation (Traille, Jauzion, Harinordoquy, Poitrenaud, Michalak…) launched a few months earlier by Bernard Laporte. Rugby was treating him well: young finalist of the French championship in June 2001 with Clermont, young international, victorious over the Springboks and Wallabies in the autumn, and soon to be a Grand Slam winner. Rougerie was from a sporting family and French rugby flowed in his veins. The region had endured long years of disappointment, a situation that Rougerie was at first powerless to change, but finally brought to an end.

Aurélien Rougerie is the son of Jacques, known as the “Cube”, a prop for AS Monferrandaise in the 1970s, who won one international cap (in 1973 against Japan), and Christine Dulac, a basketball player for Clermont also in the 70s and who was picked for France 168 times. Since 1977 Rougerie’s parents have moved into politics, following on from each other as head of sports at Clermont Ferrand’s municipal council. Rougerie has been captain of ASM since 2005. Success was hard to come by at first, as it was for his predecessors, losing three times in a row in the French championship final (2007-2009, four defeats including one in 2001). Finally, on 29 May 2010 he became a “victorious” captain with the 19-6 win over Perpignan, delivering the Brennus Shield to the people of an entire region who had waited so long for it. It was all the more fitting since Clermont was the land of his birth, his comebacks and his most turbulent times in the middle of the 2000s.

Back in 2002, six months before the Grand Slam, Clermont were playing a friendly match against Wasps. Phil Greening, the English hooker, led with his elbow and caught Rougerie in the throat, crushing his larynx, vocal cords and trachea. Four months out, three operations, two abscess and some worrying times. A permanent 12 cm scar on his neck and a voice changed forever. Rougerie’s comeback took time, but Laporte showed confidence in him, even exclaiming to the press in the midst of the 2003 Six Nations tournament, “Stop talking up the Englishman, Ben Cohen. We have Rougerie: he’s a horse!” But a reined-in horse that had difficulty finding its drive in a lack-lustre performance in the 2003 World Cup. He was then looked over in 2004, missing out on a second Grand Slam. “It was a hole in my career,” he would say later, talking of his injury and the period that followed.

He did come back though. And Rougerie, who was surrounded by other Clermont players when he started out in the French team (Bory, Marsh, Merceron, Marlu), now found himself in a back line largely made up of Toulouse players (Elissalde, Michalak, Jauzion, Poitrenaud and then Fritz). Competition came in the form of the two speedsters from the “pink city”, Heymans and Clerc, as well as from Dominici. From 2004 until 2010 he started with Dominici nine times, Heymans eight times and Clerc who, as a right wing like himself represented his most serious competition, six times. But his international career, unlike his club career at Clermont which finally saw success, became chaotic. He was perhaps less fluid (104kg) and still hesitant in defence - a weak point in his game that he had always recognised - and, despite having found himself back in favour from the end of 2004 till the end of 2006, he did not survive the two defeats against the All Blacks at Lyon (3-47!) and Paris. Having been passed over for the 2007 Six Nations tournament, he was selected for the World Cup but did not play in the historic quarter-final against New Zealand or the semi-final against England.

Since 2010 Marc Lièvremont, who tried him out in 2008 and then dropped him, has been taking an interest in Rougerie once more, even in his new club position of outside centre where he has played for Clermont since last year, also filling in at full-back on occasion. He is still captain and still indispensible at the end of the day. “He has come to understand his power,” said Vern Cotter, Clermont's Kiwi coach, in 2009. “Not as a player, as a man.” The same man who postponed his honeymoon to play in the 2010 Six Nations tournament! Rougerie was knocked out in the first few minutes of the Scotland match and missed the Grand Slam but came back in June to score a try against South Africa, the twenty-second of his international career (eighth equal-highest French try-scorer with Clerc). The encounter was his last appearance on the wing, before being tried at centre for his 58th and 59th selection in November against Argentina and then Australia. Marc Lièvremont seemed to think the experiment was worth continuing in 2011. Over the first four matches of the Six Nations tournament and despite the historic defeat in Italy (he did not play in the last game against Wales preferring to start a domestic ban in the Top 14 in order to return earlier for Clermont), Rougerie proved to be one of the rare players in the back line whom the coach could trust. He seemed to have guaranteed his seat on the flight to New Zealand as the number thirteen but on 7 May, the 26th and last day of the regular Top 14 season (Top 14), Rougerie cracked a bone in his left ankle (and tore ligaments) while playing at Toulouse. Lièvremont nevertheless selected him for the group to prepare for the World Cup, leaving the door open in case of a quick recovery. And it paid off. Rougerie was back on the pitch for the second friendly match against Ireland in Dublin on 20th August. He was one of the best French players at the Aviva Stadium that day.