barnyia

Albi are the only real team that can hold carcassonnes powerful forwards, Carcassonne are a little more forward orientated this season and work around the ruck a lot more, the influence of teddy Sadauoi I reckon, if you keep gigot quiet especially if your wingers are ready for the 40/20s and cross field kicks Albi aren't very dangerous when gigot isn't having a good day, Lézignan beat them twice and both games he didn't do much, I love watching him play, especially his 20 mètre flat passes that beat 3 or 4 defenders on their own, I see a carcassonne win unless they have an off day like last year in the final v Limoux, but I know they've learnt a big lesson from that day( me too )

Sunday

They didn't stop gigot !

The Albi u17s play Lézignan in the curtain raiser, in the semi final of the play offs, Lézignan beat them 2 weeks ago in the cup final by a couple of points,

Limoux will win I reckon, Albi haven't played for a month and have been struggling since their 11 match winning run, and limoux are almost back to full strength. Stop gigot you stop Albi.

Aveyron région

Villefranche said they'll step up, ille didn't accept last year and got told they couldn't play in the play offs this year, that wasn't true, they got deducted 2 points because they only had 6 players turn up for tyr 9's comp, the funny thing is? The federation has completely forgotten about the 9s comp ! It's at the semi final stage with Villeneuve, st Gaudens, st Estève and Lézignan in the semis, they played the pool stages before the start of the season , Villeneuve and st Gaudens didn't make the elite play offs so they last played 4 weeks ago and are now on holiday,

Villefranche where training at the Lézignan ground last night, look very pro with full training kit etc,

No idea why, no they don't need so many, they do tests and trials to get into the 19s at the Catalans, the rest of the u19s teams just have a walk up policy and anyone can come and play, so you can have a french 19s international training with a player who's never played before,

They should maybe try to take the best players, coach them all week and the players non selected go back to their original club at the weekend. But that would improve the quality of players but would probably cost a lot of money on accommodation etc to get all the best players staying in Perpignan all week.

And the 40 aren't all the best players in the 19s category ,It's annoying especially when the rest of the division have played at least one game with less than 17 players!

Rostang Avignon, Jammes limoux, Aubry, Carcassonne, martin Lézignan, should definitely be in the team, the Catalan team steam rolled everyone but have 40 players all first and second years but most didn't play any elite 1, lots of the Toulouse 19s played elite 1 until the serious part of the season and dropped to the 19s for the bigger games. I reckon it'll be a good mix, Guillermo is a shoe in from the Catalans, but probably the only one playing elite 1 at UTC in the list,

There's still at a squad of 30, that will be cut down to 21 I think, with quite a few that play elite every week, even in a super league squad with Guillermo, Jammes, rostang, garrigues, I'd say at least 1/2 of the 30 play regularly in elite 1,

Toulouse have lots of players playing first grade that drop back for the cup and play offs, Villeneuve 19s may create a surprise

https://viaoccitanie.tv/ The link to the channel, hopefully it'll work in the UK, 2pm kick off in England, 3pm France

Lambert Belmas goes well. Some of the HM are out of position and out of form. Some deserve the honourable mention.

The money goes to the federation to plan and govern the game There is no prize money in french rl, you play all year to win a piece of wood or a cup,

Referees paid and the privilege to play in elite 1. Then you still have to pay fines for yellow and red cards, fines if supporters don't behave, fines for not having a doctor on site, fines for not having the right security, etc etc

The fee for elite 2 is 5000 I think, plus players of elite 1 level need paying more,

It's 20000 per team so yes there's a fee, plus a fee for your u19s team of 1 or 2 thousand, don't forget there's 0 prize money in France for any division

Live on via occitanie and sport en France with the Toulouse game just afterwards on via occitanie,( all Toulouse home games are on via occitanie now)

Hope so. Really would love to see Lézignan get the win

Yes it's worrying, when you see the Catalans have 40 players in the u19s, Lézignan played with 13 players this weekend, limoux 14 players, Villeneuve, Carcassonne, Albi and pia have all played at least one game with just 13 players on the team sheet (u19s) st Gaudens 19s play 9s and Avignon 19s forfeited 2 games this season, Toulouse elite team turned up with 16 players as they dropped their u19s first teamers down to the juniors, Worrying times, I know the numbers in u17s is slightly higher than last year, the federation used to let 3 u20 players on the team sheet of the u19s but that's been stopped this year,

With around 4 to 5000 actual players in all of France, including all players male and female from 5 years old to adults, shows the coaching is not too bad!

1700 licences around the Perpignan region, so almost a quarter of all licences,