Rc Vannes
Fc Grenoble Rugby
Regular ProD2 viewers may have been twiddling their thumbs earlier in the week, having been denied their Thursday fill of the French second division to start the rugby weekend. But as an advertising exec charged with peddling the world’s most famous stout once said: good things come to those who wait. Vannes and Grenoble will meet at Roazhon Park, home of Stade Rennais FC, in front of an astonishing 30,000 fans on a Sunday night - for the first time ever in ProD2.
The sides that will battle it out in Brittany have been the best the league has produced in the last three seasons, even if fortunes this term have differed. Vannes, relegated back to ProD2 after their first year in the Top 14, have been the early pace-setters this season, failing to pick up a point only once from ten fixtures. Grenoble, having fallen agonisingly close to promotion in each of the last three years, have had a middling season thus far, beset by injury, but only a brave minority would bet against them making the Barrage come next May.
The real story of Sunday night, though, is something much bigger: the unstoppable ascent of ProD2 in both the French rugby public imagination and that of Rugby Club Vannes, from relative obscurity to the league’s most supported side.
It is news to few that France’s second division stands out as the premier rugby competition of its kind, and its broadcast deal with Canal+, which stands at €10.7 million a year, is envied by governing bodies the world over. That figure, beyond sheer financial heft, is perhaps more significantly emblematic of the league’s importance and mass appeal.
Admittedly, the usual late-night Sunday slot has been vacated by the Top 14 owing to the Autumn Nations Series, but that has been the case in many a season gone without ProD2 being asked to fill the void. Sunday night marks the second fixture of the season - the first being Vannes’ round-one trip to Brive - where ProD2 has been elevated into the prime-time slots usually reserved only for the Top 14.
The premium billing is given even more weight by the shift to a stadium more familiar with Ligue 1 football. General sale tickets for Roazhon Park sold out in half an hour, and although the capacity of 29,778 won’t beat the ProD2 attendance record of Lyon vs Oyonnax at the Stade de Gerland in 2011 (37,000), it will be by far the highest in recent memory.
The huge demand for tickets should come as no surprise. Vannes itself might be an outpost in rugby terms, geographically isolated from the traditional French rugby heartlands, but the appetite for rugby in Brittany has gone through the roof.
The Stade de la Rabine, Vannes’ beautiful port-side home nestled next to the town’s stunning ramparts, has become one of French rugby’s trickiest tickets. Servers have been known to crash during season ticket queues, and a pre-season friendly against Toulouse some 120 km north in Guingamp was filled in the blink of an eye by 19,000 Bretons. The Gulf of Morbihan, within which Vannes is the main town, is renowned for its oysters and yachting. In Brittany it seems, they’re gonna need a bigger boat.
For Rennes, it’s not the city’s first rodeo with the oval-ball game. In 2016, Roazhon Park hosted both Top 14 semi-finals, with Racing 92 and Toulon progressing to another off-piste venue - Barcelona’s iconic Camp Nou - where the Parisians eventually prevailed. A few weeks before, Jean-Noël Spitzer’s Vannes squeezed past another Paris side, RC Massy-Essonne, to secure promotion from Fédérale 1 to ProD2 for the very first time. Anthony Bouthier was the hero that day, and he lines up at fullback having returned to the club for whom his 80-metre promotion-clinching try is etched in folklore.
Elsewhere, notwithstanding some injuries, Vannes look stacked. Mako Vunipola, Dave Cherry and Santiago Medrano make up an outstanding front row. Michael Ruru and Maxime Lafage are on form as the league’s premium halfback pairing, and there is pace and class out wide in the form of former Newcastle Falcon Ben Stevenson and the prodigiously talented Enzo Benmegal. Steeve Blanc-Mappaz starts in the back row against the club he represented with such esteem for six seasons.
Grenoble have been beset by problems with player availability, both through international appearances and injury. Key men José Madeira, Cody Thomas and Raffaele Costa Storti are still on Portugal duty, whilst Sam Davies is inching towards a return but understandably remains out of the picture for this one. Namibians Richard Hardwick and Gerschwin Mouton remain sidelined with injury, both for Grenoble and their national team who lost out to Samoa this week.
For Les Grenoblois to get anything out of their enormous trip north, then, Barnabé Couilloud will need to match the speed and service of Ruru, and their front row of Zack Gauthier, Bastien Soury and Johannes Jonker will need the nudge on at the set piece. It is, in fairness, an impressive trio tasked with taking forward a Grenoble scrum that has been central to their league success in recent seasons.
Perhaps the change of venue gives Grenoble a sniff rarely afforded to sides travelling to Vannes and the fortress that is La Rabine. Bayonne and Toulon have occasionally flattered to deceive in the Top 14 when shifting games to San Sebastián and Marseille respectively, and there may be some chink of light in that for the visitors. Or will Sunday night in Rennes serve to be La Rabine cranked up to eleven: 30,000 vociferous Bretons in full voice, double the Celtic fervour served up in a cauldron that will surely be one of the highlights of this season’s rugby calendar?
The odds seem stacked against Grenoble, but the omens are good. Out of the seven games in round eleven of ProD2 staggering five have yielded away victories. If Grenoble are to pull it off, it will surely be one of their finest days on the road, and a party-spoiling act the likes of which we haven’t seen since Montauban pulled off the unthinkable in the summer.
Pro D2 continues this Sunday (16th November) with Vannes v Grenoble, available to UK & Ireland viewers for free via FRUK Rugby on YouTube.