I'm player/coach of Pia and am full time employed by the club. While i'm home i catch up with family and organise the next season, that includes signing Australians and organising the pre-season in France. This year we had 5 Australians over here for Pia. Myself, Paul Franze and Matt Kennedy all have NRL Experience from various clubs and we also had Craig West from the Sunshine Coast and Mitchel Steel who is a Newcastle product who played for the Knights Reserves last year. This year we may add to these but we are waiting to see if the rules will be changed on the number of imports allowed. At the moment it is 4 foreigners but this may be changed to 3 Australians plus unlimited European passport holder for next year. I am considered French because i have played 4 seasons here.


The game has a long and prestigious history here. Not many Australians realise that there are a lot of Rugby League strongholds in France. Here pretty much from village to village it is either a 'Union' town or a 'League' town. Plenty of political things have happened over the years that have hurt the game a little. Union is definately the game backed by the powers that be, i.e government etc. The reasons for this are many and varied but put simply it's a case of Union people in places of power over the years battering the image of League to become the dominant code. Soccer or 'Foot' as they call it here is by far 'the' sport in France. It is played everywhere and by everyone. Union comes in behind that and is also played throughout the country but is definately more popular in the South. League I'd say would be placed as a 'third' tier sport with the likes of probably Basketball, European Handball etc.


League's heartland is definately in the South of France although it is played throughout the country. Perpignan many would say is its home and is where the Catalans Dragons Super League club is based. Perpignan is situated around 30 minutes from the Spanish border, on the Mediterranean Sea. League's other strong areas are the mid-sized towns that are usually a little isolated. The current French Elite Competition (the first grade here) has the following teams.

Under this competition there is the Elite 2, another national competition. There is no relegation/promotion system heresay but from time to time mainly due to finances etc, teams have gone up, down, and dissapeared completely. In my 4 years here i've seen 2 or 3 teams basically relegated and sometimes shutdown by the federation.

Under these 2 competitions there is what they call the 'Federal' competitions and these are set up more or less in a geo-graphical sense throughout the country. It is possible for these teams to progress to Elite 2 if they can financially and if they are good enough.

That's a basic wrap of the current competition. Most of the teams in the Elite comp. are situated below the southern belt of France with the exception of Lyon which is basically in the middle of France.




In it's areas League gets plenty of media coverage and in the other areas, not much. To compare, on Free to air French television, Soccer is on all the time, Union rarely and League never. On French pay tv it is much fairer with all the Catalans Dragons games televised with French commentators. The Elite Final is televised live on Pay tv as well as the Elite 'Cup' final which is like the old Panasonic Cup but involving teams of all levels like the F.A Cup. So, every now and then there is a fairytale story which makes it an exciting occasion.

Crowd fugures can vary dramatically. At one end you have the Dragons who play at Stade Gilbert Brutus, Perpignan. They would average around 8 to 10 000 a game and sometimes much more for the odd game, it depends.

For the Elite competition the derby's and big games get good crowds. The Elite has the feel to me very much of league in Australia in the 80's. Smaller, suburban grounds. Loud and loyal fans and a good atmosphere. Most games there are bands and trumpets playing and the feel is very different to Australia. The big games in the Elite would average about 5 000 fans. In the small grounds here that is jam packed and lots of fun. It sounds more like 20 000.

The grand final of the Elite had around 11 000 at Beziers this year, a sea-side town on the Mediterranean. The venus of the final changes each year. The Cup final had around the same amount at Carcassone but was played in torrential rain and would usually have more.

NRL and State of Origin games can be watched here through English Sky TV which most league fans have. Plenty of the league's clubs have it also, for example the other day our team watched the 1st state of origin at our club house at Pia. We also get probably 2 or 3 NRL games a week through the Setanta channel on Sky Sports. Austrlian league gets covered in the papers down here in the South, and often they put in some brief match reports and the ladder. Buy a paper in Paris however, for example, and you wouldn't know league exsisted. That's part of the problem league faces here in terms of becoming a 'big' national sport. At the moment it is still very 'tribal'. Extremely popular in it's areas, unheard of in others.

The world cup has had some coverage. John Monie is the coach of France at the moment and now that most of their players are playing regular Super League the national team is improving in leaps and bounds. Soon they play England in a friendly match so that should be interesting. They might not set the world alight at this World Cup but give them i reckon 3 or 4 more years and they will be quite competitive with the big league nations. The Dragons certainly have had a massive effect on the young here and that will help French league in the future. This year the numbers of kids playing league has increased enormously. They can see a future in it now as a full time athlete and that is helping the sport.