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Connections between Sydney Roosters and French Rugby League


The Daddy

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Always noticed over the years that Sydney Roosters had close links to French Rugby League and thought I'd list a few of those connections here

- The Rooster, the nickname of the Sydney Roosters is the national symbol of France and identified on the logo of all their national sporting organisations

- Toulouse veterans Mark Kheirallah and Jonothan Ford and Catalan veteran Jason Baitieri started out and came through the ranks at Sydney Roosters. Mark scored in a World Cup game for France against Australia at the Sydney Football Stadium home of home of the Sydney Roosters

- Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson is the current France national team Director of Football/Coaching Director

- France national team captain and Toulouse player Remi Casty played for the Roosters

- The only French born players to have played in the NRL, Casty and Baitieri played for the Sydney Roosters. No other NRL club asides from the Roosters have signed a French player

- Catalan Dragons coach Steve McNamara was assistant coach at the Roosters before being appointed at Catalan

- Sydney Roosters coach Trent Robinson played for and coached Toulouse, married a french lady (I think has French children) and speaks fluent french

- Sydney Roosters are the only NRL club to do a training camp in France when they had a joint camp with Toulouse in 2019 before their World Club Championship match

- The Sydney Roosters colours red, white and blue are the same as France's national colours. No other NRL club utilises all three of those colours together

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47 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

The whole reason they picked the 'the Roosters' as their nickname in the first place is because they were inspired by the French and the fact they had the same colours as them. Their jersey design was inspired by the French as well.

https://www.roosters.com.au/news/2021/05/13/the-rooster-revolution-how-easts-found-their-emblem/

From that, From 1908-1966, Eastern Suburbs were affectionately known as the Tricolours referring to the Red, White and Blue striped jerseys the team ran out in.

Given that The French Rugby League was formed on 6 April 1934, it seems that the Tricolours use of red,white and blue predates the introduction of our sport into France.

 

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7 minutes ago, JohnM said:

From that, From 1908-1966, Eastern Suburbs were affectionately known as the Tricolours referring to the Red, White and Blue striped jerseys the team ran out in.

Given that The French Rugby League was formed on 6 April 1934, it seems that the Tricolours use of red,white and blue predates the introduction of our sport into France.

 

Couple of things from that. That Eastern Suburbs logo was beautiful. I understand the modernisation, but it is sad that has gone. 

I like the article from the 50's referring to the shorts as Knickers 😆

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24 minutes ago, The Daddy said:

Did he play first grade? 

4 games according to Rugby League Project.

https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/players/jerome-guisset/summary.html

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10 hours ago, JohnM said:

From that, From 1908-1966, Eastern Suburbs were affectionately known as the Tricolours referring to the Red, White and Blue striped jerseys the team ran out in.

Given that The French Rugby League was formed on 6 April 1934, it seems that the Tricolours use of red,white and blue predates the introduction of our sport into France.

 

I never claimed their colours were inspired by the French… I said the opposite in fact.

As the link says, and is well known history in Australian RL circles, the fact that their colours happened to be the same as France’s, and the French national team was successful at the time, inspired them to embrace other French design elements, such as their name, logo, and jersey design.

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19 minutes ago, Davo5 said:

Being a Roosters fan I’m biased but their home jersey is probably the most iconic design in the sport & has hardly changed since the  “City Ford” one my parents bought me in the 80s.

I'd agree with that, they have generally held firm as others have modernised and it is still a classic. 

It was never my favourite growing up in the 80s, the likes of Balmain and Canberra were more interesting as a kid with their bold colours. 

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1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

Being a Roosters fan I’m biased but their home jersey is probably the most iconic design in the sport & has hardly changed since the  “City Ford” one my parents bought me in the 80s.

I guess it depends on how you are defining 'iconic', but it's definitely not the most recognisable RL jersey in Australia.

The Roosters jersey would definitely be in the top 10, but both the SOO jerseys, Souths cardinal and myrtle, the red vee, and arguably a handful of others would be more recognised on average.

BTW, the Roosters first started wearing their current design in the early 50s. So it's remained more or less unchanged for almost 70 years.

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56 minutes ago, The Great Dane said:

I guess it depends on how you are defining 'iconic', but it's definitely not the most recognisable RL jersey in Australia.

The Roosters jersey would definitely be in the top 10, but both the SOO jerseys, Souths cardinal and myrtle, the red vee, and arguably a handful of others would be more recognised on average.

BTW, the Roosters first started wearing their current design in the early 50s. So it's remained more or less unchanged for almost 70 years.

Those same SOO jerseys which have changed designs several times over the last decade or so & the south’s ones which now have black trim ?

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15 hours ago, JohnM said:

From that, From 1908-1966, Eastern Suburbs were affectionately known as the Tricolours referring to the Red, White and Blue striped jerseys the team ran out in.

Given that The French Rugby League was formed on 6 April 1934, it seems that the Tricolours use of red,white and blue predates the introduction of our sport into France.

 

It certainly does. This article shows an image of Dally Messenger in the Eastern Suburbs kit and he only played until 1913:

Rugby league legend Herbert "Dally" Messenger in the early Eastern Suburbs strip.

https://www.roosters.com.au/news/2018/04/07/the-heritage-of-the-tricolours/

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1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

Those same SOO jerseys which have changed designs several times over the last decade or so & the south’s ones which now have black trim ?

Without a doubt.

If you put every Australian RL jersey design in front of a cross section of average people from across the country more would be able to identify your average SOO, Rabbitohs, etc, jersey than the Roosters jersey.

If you targeted specific age groups you'd get significantly different results as well; I'd be willing to bet that the Red Vee would be way more recognisable on average to over 50s, the Raiders armbands, Panthers liquorice allsorts, and early Broncos jerseys would be more recognisable to people in their 30-40s, while Storm jerseys would be significantly more recognisable to under 20s.

It'd honestly be a fascinating study to do, same goes for AFL branding.

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There is definitely a strong historical connection between the Roosters and French Rugby League and there is no doubt that connection has been strengthened since Trent Robinson took charge, but some of the claims in this thread aren't quite correct. 

Firstly on the jersey / colours, the primary Roosters kit is inspired by the touring French teams, same with the chosen mascot, but the club isn't the only NRL team to use Red, White & Blue (Newcastle has always declared those three colours as their team colours and arguably uses the correct 'French Blue').

On players, Jérôme Guisset (Canberra) was French born, whilst Dimitri Pelo (Canberra) and Dane Chisholm (Storm) were French representatives who were signed and played NRL before Remi.

You then had the likes of Tony Gigot (Cronulla), Sebastien Martins (Brisbane) and Benjamin Garcia (Penrith) who had contracts but didn't play NRL (Ben did play in the Auckland Nines) in recent times plus a few others who have played in the junior systems like Baptiste Fabre, Cesar Rouge and Levy Nzoungou at the Storm.

On the WCC, whilst unfortunately it didn't happen, Melbourne attempted to play Catalans prior to their match against Leeds in 2008, however they were denied by Super League and ended up moving their camp and match to Halifax. 

And as for McNamara, he was assistant coach at the Warriors when he was given the Catalans gig.

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