Former France captain Raphael Ibanez, who was forced
to retire from playing earlier this season due to a series
of concussions, has admitted he is weighing up the prospect
of becoming a coach.
His current club London
Wasps have made overtures to bring him on board and Ibanez
said that could be “a good opportunity” as he seeks to move
on from his distinguished playing career.
The 36-year-old, who
won 98 caps for France, told L’Equipe that he hoped
one day to become involved with the national team’s coaching
set up, admitting “it will be one of my aims, one day, to
share what I have learnt”.
But Ibanez conceded he
needed coaching experience before considering any position
with Les Bleus and has spoken at length with Wasps’ coach
Shaun Edwards about the necessary skills to succeed at the
job.
“The priority is going
to be seeing what the possibilities are with Wasps,” he
said. “I know they have the intention of integrating me into
the staff.”
Current French
international Fulgence Ouedraogo, meanwhile, has
signed a contract extension with Montpellier,
although he does have a get-out clause if they fail to
secure Heineken Cup qualification.
Montpellier are
currently ninth in Top 14, some 10 points behind
sixth-placed Bayonne, so his €250,000 buy-out clause could
well be activated this summer.
They went down 22-3 at
lowly Bourgoin at the weekend, a result which spurred the
home side’s coveted fly-half Benjamin Boyet to pledge
his future to the season-long strugglers – again with
strings attached.
For Boyet it is mere
Top 14 survival that will keep him at Bourgoin – a
prospect that now looks a lot more optimistic after the
comfortable home win against Montpellier.
This weekend they
entertain 13th-placed Dax with the knowledge that
another victory would take them considerably nearer safety,
and open up at least an eight-point gap.
Dax have been battling
away of late but a string of narrow defeats has left them
facing the abyss as they have now lost nine successive
league games.
Another team hoping to
break their losing streak – although not as awful as Dax’s –
is Stade Francais. The capital’s giants have lost
successive games away to Montauban (22-6) and Stade
Toulousain (15-11), and this weekend they face another
heavyweight clash when they entertain fourth-placed Clermont
Auvergne.
Only four points
separate the two sides at present and Stade Francais crashed
22-6 in the reverse fixture earlier in the season.
Home advantage should give them the edge, but ‘home’ in this
instance is a sold-out Stade de France – not their happiest
of hunting grounds so far this season. Their nine-match
winning start to the season was abruptly ended there by a
26-13 defeat Stade Toulousain in October, and they
subsequently went on to experience defeat there against
Harlequins (15-10) in the Heineken Cup.
Their third match held
at the national team’s headquarters was in January against
Perpignan, and ended in a 13-13 draw in a match otherwise
dominated by Dan Carter’s ruptured Achilles.
Speaking of which,
Carter’s continuing rehabilitation is set to move up a notch
on Friday when he has his ‘moon boot’ removed.
The All Black fly-half
has been in a cast since that January injury, but New
Zealand team doctor Deb Robinson cautioned against
expectations.
“The very first thing
he has to do is normalise his walking gait,” she told
Reuters.
“If things go well, I
still think we’re looking at around the six to eight months
mark for some sort of rugby,” she added.
Carter, who has
confirmed he will stay in Perpignan until the end of his
contract in June, has been told it is too early to speculate
when exactly he can expect to return to competitive rugby.
