Vincent Clerc, Les Bleus enfant terrible, is responsible for arrowing more pain into Irish rugby hearts than any humongous French bruiser. At 35 now, it's almost fitting that Clerc's career has finally been slowed by a ruptured Achilles tendon. No other way to stop the winger immortalised in Guy Noves Toulouse dynasty.
And for what he did to Ireland in Croke Park.
“Sorry, I was skiing with my daughter,” came an unnecessary apology for not returning a call to an unknown journalist. “Suppose you want to talk about the try?”
Oui, Vincent, all of them. Seven tries in four matches against Ireland by this elusive, petit winger dominated today’s fixture between 2004 and 2008. Nightmarish stuff for Eddie O’Sullivan’s Ireland but Clerc adds the context of a personal desperation, explaining how that bled into France’s helter-skelterish final dance to spoil the soft opening of GAA headquarters to rugby in 2007.
"I'll never forget," Clerc began while driving down from the Alps last weekend. "Yannick Jauzion carried . . ."
For those uninitiated to Ireland’s misery, a Ronan O’Gara penalty made it 17-13 with 78 minutes clocked. The restart was batted infield - Paul O’Connell was impeded - and a quick recycle allowed Jauzion, the legendary Toulouse centre, to scramble six metres shy of the Irish try line.
Two skip passes later, the ball was in Clerc’s hand on the 22 in front of the posts.
“I just ran straight because the Irish defence were all drifting - I could see this - so I kept the ball and luckily a prop was in front of me.”
Stop, rewind, pause. From a perch in the Canal End, Clerc's slow motion journey looks impossible. He was surrounded. Instinctively, he noticed that all five green jerseys were moving towards the right touchline. Neil Best was directly in front of him until a subtle step off his left foot forced the Ulster flanker and Shane Horgan into hard turns that made them irrelevant as Clerc became John Hayes's man. Hayes stretched every sinew in his massive frame to grab hold of the tiny winger's shoulder, but he sank lower and accelerated. A bandaged Denis Hickie almost saved this historical moment from the fire but an electric shuffle saw Clerc diving over just as O'Connell swooped.
“I can’t tell you how special that try was for me,” says Clerc 10 years later.
"That moment saved my international career. I had been out of the team. Croke Park was my opportunity to prove I was good enough to play for France and to be selected for a World Cup on home soil. All because of this victory, of this try."
Everyone has a perspective.
“The victory also proved a catalyst for us. By the time we met Ireland again in Paris during the Pool stages it was a different story, unfortunately for Ireland it was the same result.”
On that dreary Parisian night the following September, Clerc's two tries denied the global takeover of O'Sullivan's amalgamation of Leinster's flying column and Munster heavies (Simon Easterby and Andrew Trimble too). Seemingly the greatest gelling of foes in Irish sporting history, the dream was obliterated by some razor sharp finishing.
“Again, victory over Ireland saved our tournament [they had lost their opening match to Argentina] and gave us the confidence to go to Cardiff and beat the Blacks. Then England...”
He trails off. It's irrelevant and anyway Clerc was not done humiliating Ireland. A hat-trick followed during the disastrous 2008 Six Nations campaign but thereafter French rugby careered down a ridiculously inept path - temporarily resurrecting themselves on that inexplicable run to the 2011 World Cup final that, remember, included defeat to Tonga before Craig Joubert's incomprehensible officiating gifted New Zealand the William Webb Ellis.
Clerc was present during all of this, the last of 67 caps (and a stunning 34 tries) coming in 2013.
Coupled with this commendable international career is an epic club innings under the revered tutelage of Noves. Clerc is actually from the Grenoble suburb of Échirolles but left his local club in 2002 to join the already burgeoning Toulouse empire. He switched to Toulon last summer after winning three European medals and three French titles, but retains an ideal perspective of the France national team that Noves seeks to rejuvenate.
“This is a new French team and with Guy they can be successful,” Clerc states matter of factly. “Guy brings a lot of valour and old rugby values wherever he coaches. France need that. He has been smart enough to learn from previous French coaches and the team has already changed since he arrived. The right decisions are being made now, he is picking the right players.”
By this, Clerc means form players like La Rochelle flanker Kevin Gourdon and the magical Bordeaux-Bégles scrumhalf Baptiste Serin.
“I am seeing good performances in defeats to Australia, New Zealand and England, a game we should have won, so the win over Scotland, with a mediocre performance, was encouraging to me. It’s the type of victory we have not seen from France in a long time.
“There is now a need amongst the players to win. You see, Guy is one of the games great competitors. But, also, there will be ambition in how his team plays, always an ambitious approach. I think Scotland was a great result simply because we kept the ball more.
“But the Irish team has progressed too. You beat the All Blacks. That is an indescribable experience for brilliant young players, like Henshaw.”
Clerc predicted the changes Noves made, seeing the logic behind Yoann Huget's recall for Virimi Vakatawa, who is a Sevens player without a 15 aside club and would have been ruthlessly probed by Johnny Sexton.
Also, Huget is of Toulouse.
“I think Yoann will come in because against Sexton we need a great defender, for positioning and the up and unders.”
What’s his opinion of Fijians squeezing out the multitude of home grown wingers? “It’s strange for France to have Fijians on the wing but the next generation of French wingers are coming through. Guy knows this. There are other young players, like Serin, hungry, ambitious coming from clubs like Bordeaux-Bégles. Players who can all become great if the French club game allows them.”
For all the additional access Noves has to players before and during the Six Nations, Clerc sees the power of French clubs and the huge number of foreigners playing in the Top 14 as the ongoing reasons why France cannot become one of the elite rugby nations any time soon.
“There is progress but it will take five or six years.”
Bernard Laporte, the new FFR president, has all these problems laid at his feet but beating off Ireland to host the 2023 World Cup seems to be the current priority.
“We have been saying for 15 years that we play too much and have not prepared properly,” Clerc continues. “We can argue about this all we like but genuine improvement will only come when we have a shorter championship and this can only be done, I believe, by reducing [the Top 14] to 10 or 12 clubs.
“There are just too many injuries.
“Change it and French rugby at international level will change. Only then can we become one of the best rugby nations in the world.
“Otherwise we are just capable of the occasional spectacular.”
That, and those massive forwards pounding away, is what Ireland fear most. These dual threats were perfectly crystallised by Maxime Medard’s free-wheeling try off a dominant scrum in Paris last year.
“We learned a lot from all those scrums under the posts last season,” countered Jack McGrath this week. “We got a bit more street smart from the experience.
“Jouéz, jouéz [Play, play],” shrugged McGrath, “if you let them get their nose in front they will be flicking the ball out the back door. But France are always really difficult to play against. Their skill level is always brilliant and they have really big men that can move. They have serious depth on their bench too. I don’t think a whole lot has changed with France.”
Imagine what could be achieved if all the logical voices colluded to help Laporte make the necessary changes?
“For the moment the Irish team have to be favourites,” Clerc laughs mischievously. “We like being - how do you say? - underdogs. We always have. We used that in Croke Park that day.
“It makes us dangerous.”
