Sunday 2 November 2014 20:56, UK
Toulon are still front-runners to win the Top 14 this season, but Sky Sports pundit Dewi Morris says Clermont are looking like a team who can push them all the way, with one player in particular likely to provide the difference.
Toulon are still the team to beat and it will take something extraordinary from another team to stop them getting a third consecutive title, but Clermont look like the most likely team to provide that challenge. They are leaders of the Top 14, they’re playing with the right attitude and they’ve got a very well balanced squad. I’m impressed with the way they’ve gone about this, this season. They’ve signed well; they’ve potentially just lost Jonathan Davies but Nick Abendanon has really impressed since arriving on French soil a few months ago.
I spoke with Nathan Hines over the weekend who spoke highly of the fact that despite being such an enormous club, Clermont still embrace some of the great traditions and values of the game. All players are expected to muck in and help with some of the less glamorous duties around club life.
He tackles hard, he’s straight over the ball when he does tackle, and he is never scared to get involved in the grittier phases of play.
As a squad, mentally, they seem to have got away from their horror run at the end of last season when they got humiliated by Saracens at Twickenham in the semi-final of Europe before crashing out at the quarter-final stage of the Top 14 to Castres two weeks later.
They’ve clearly all had a good sit down and have the old characters in Jamie Cudmore and Aurélien Rougerie demanding the same high standards from previous seasons, while some of the new players will be expected to add something different to this already talented side, to help them take that final step to silverware.
Dictate
For me the new player who has stood out the most so far, and the one who will most likely provide that difference for Clermont this season is 25 year-old fly-half Camille Lopez. He is vastly different from your classic French fly-half. In France they place more emphasis on a scrum-half being the orchestrator of the team who dictates the tempo and direction of the game, but in Lopez you have a guy who is almost in the mould of an English fly-half – if slightly quicker with a bit more guile.
In the past the French have picked guys such as Frederic Michalak in the fly-half berth. There is no doubting Michalak’s talent, but his lack of consistency – as can be said about a host of other French players – has left his team floundering on many occasions. I’m not talking about just going missing, I’m talking about the kind of performances in which the coach can’t get him off the pitch fast enough. The gap between a French fly-half at his best and at his worst has simply been far too wide in the past, and I think Lopez is the perfect antidote to that.
He tackles hard, he’s straight over the ball when he does tackle, and he is never scared to get involved in the grittier phases of play. He’s also able to mix his game up effectively. When Clermont visited Saracens he almost beat Sarries at their own game; plenty of kicking with an organised rush defence. Against Sale though, they played an effective offload game around the fringes, with him again in complete control. Clermont have a wealth of speed, power and talent outside wide in the form of Fofana, Rougerie, Davies, Stanley, Nalaga and Abendanon, so it’s incredibly important to have that general in the midfield. That’s what’s crucial about Lopez; despite the seniority of the players mentioned, he’s happy to take control and dictate to them where and when they can expect the ball. He seems to be totally in control, just as Clermont are in control of the Top 14.
Youth
Lopez has two caps for France but for the reasons listed above I’d love to see Philippe Saint-André give him more of a chance in the national team. I’m not saying that Lopez is the ‘real deal’ just yet, but he certainly seems to be in possession of something France have been lacking for quite some time now. The French are in dire need of someone to take control of their games. When Morgan Parra returns from injury they will get a lot of that control back, but I believe that if you give Lopez the baton, and the ball, he could make some big decisions for them.
Closer to home we have the LV= Cup kicking off in style this weekend. I love this competition because it gives the younger players a chance to excel in high-pressure games alongside players with great experience. In particular the game we’re showing on Sky this weekend - between last year’s semi-finalists Saracens and their old London rivals Harlequins - should provide the perfect stage to test the latest young English talent coming through. As they were both semi-finalists in the Premiership in May, their squad depths will be most scrutinised by competitions such as this, and I’m looking forward to seeing who comes out on top on Sunday.
