rlfan13

It does look like Laurent Frayssinous will be able to pick his strongest side with full cooperation from Toulouse -- and it could be a great event, with a big crowd. It would be a shame to discourage supporters by talking this event down. Sylvain Houles, Toulouse coach, said: 'I have spoken to Laurent and he will take any of our players that he chooses. Of course every player wants to play for his country and I fully support that.' He he added 'We will be clear with our players that the priority is the French team.' Cedric Garcia (Director of Sport at Toulouse) and Olivier DuBois (Toulouse Chairman) see the triple header as a great way to attract media attention and to grow the sport. Dominique Baloup, FFRXIII President, has long seen this event as key in the celebration of 90 years of French rugby league and in the promotion of the sport in France. It would be great to make the Toulouse vs Featherstone match as French as possible, with Toulouse using their dual reg with Catalans to bolster their squad. This could be a very special day for French rugby league. It would also be great to build the game up as much as possible and to hear the French clubs repeat, and repeat, and repeat as early as possible and as publicly as possible that all players will be available for French and that they can't wait to get stuck into this challenge.

Thanks Cliff for your wonderful coverage of the game in France. I think that I've read every entry that you have ever done in Treiziste Diary and I've enjoyed them all. TD fired my enthusiasm for the game in France, and I've now got a wonderful group of RL friends from villages around the Carcassonee area. I hope that you will breakout of semi-retirement with many special essays in the future. Happy semi-retirement!

Thanks for this info. As you say, it's great news that Gigot and Barthau will be dual-registered with TO. This could make the rest of the season's TO matches very interesting--and, I hope, open up the play-offs.