Top 14 Players To Watch: French Club Rugby Returns, World's Stars Ready
Top 14 Players To Watch: French Club Rugby Returns, World's Stars Ready
Top 14 is the top division of French club rugby, with many of the world's finest players, most notable up-and-comers and continental challengers competing.
If you're a rugby fan who's not watching the Top 14, maybe you should get started on that soon.
The top division of French club rugby has many of the world's finest players, most notable up-and-comers and continental challengers competing within its ranks, giving it the deserved distinction as one of the best leagues in the world.
Unfortunately, partly due to the fact that English-language coverage of the Top 14 is difficult to find, some prospective fans are subjected to a bit of a barrier to entry.
That's where FloSports is here to help, giving a peek into some of the top names and figures playing their club rugby in France - and what they're all about - as the league starts a new season early next month.
Here's a look at five names to keep an eye on as the Top 14 season gets underway. Coverage will continue throughout the year on FloRugby.
Antoine Dupont, Scrum-Half, Toulouse
Dupont is the reigning World Rugby Men's 15s Player of the Year. Need we say more?
Even while aged just 25, Dupont already has captained his country and led it to a Six Nations Grand Slam, won a European Rugby Champions Cup (2020-2021) with his club team and established himself as arguably the finest active scrum-half - and likely overall player - on the planet.
A total package with few weaknesses, Dupont, a two-time Six Nations Player of the Tournament, is nearly impossible to stop with the ball in his hands for both club and country and a total powerhouse for Toulouse, the team that signed him from Castres in 2017.
He's won two Top 14 titles in his time with the Red and Blacks, but a fourth-place regular-season finish and early exit from the playoffs last season likely has Toulouse seeking a return to the pinnacle this time around, especially with the standards the team and its fans have as Europe's most successful rugby club.
With players like Dupont playing for your side, anything is possible.
Morgan Parra, Fly-Half, Stade Francais
A legendary figure for Clermont, making nearly 300 appearances and scoring over 2,300 points for the club over 13 years, Parra opted for a change of scenery in the offseason, and the 33-year-old and French national team veteran signed with Paris' Stade Francais. It's his first new club for the first time in over a decade.
It's not as if Parra, who helped lead Clermont to Top 14 titles in 2010 and 2017, is over the hill, either. His 160 points scored a season ago ranked among the top 10 league-wide, helping him prove he still was able to contribute at a high level.
He's now joining one of the most successful sides in French club rugby, and Stade Francais has been a bit down on its luck as of late, having not won a league title since 2015 and having finished 10th or worse in the final table four times since then.
Parra's veteran leadership and ability to lead as a former Clermont captain could prove influential in his new club's climb back to the top.
Dany Priso, Prop, Toulon
Priso was a bit of a forgotten man after the prop missed out on selection to the French national team for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, watching from home as Les Bleus only managed to crack into the quarterfinals - their joint-lowest positioning at a World Cup - for the second consecutive tournament.
No string-puller in the French rugby system isn't talking about him now.
Priso was one of the key men behind La Rochelle's stunning run to this past season's Champions Cup title, with the Privateers winning their first continental trophy before they even won a Top 14 championship back home in France.
Using his increased stock to earn a move away from the Atlantic coast, the Cameroon-born Priso is with Toulon for the 2022 season. He signed a three-year deal to lead the club's front line.
New setting aside, what Priso may be appreciating most is that he's back in the national team conversation, as coach Fabien Galthie selected him to France's 42-man squad for a two-test series against Japan last month.
Warrick Gelant, Fullback, Racing 92
Though much of the Top 14 player pool is French (obviously), there are countless examples of international imports coming to the country and bossing it up, despite the culture change, language barriers and everything in between.
South Africa's Gelant - capped 10 times by the Springboks since 2017 - could be the next in a growing line of outsiders to make an impact on the league landscape.
Signed by Racing 92 in the offseason in an attempt to plug the gap left at fullback by stud Teddy Thomas (who left to sign on with La Rochelle in the wake of its Champions Cup win), the 27-year-old Gelant has never played club rugby outside of his native nation but has a loaded resume of former clubs in South Africa signing his paychecks, including the Bulls, Stormers and Western Province.
Plus, plenty of his fellow countrymen have come to France to flex their muscles, including Handre Pollard, the Springboks star who was crucial in nabbing a first Top 14 title for Montpellier this past season.
Who is to say Gelant can't be an important part of the squad for Racing, too?
Romain Ntamack, Fly-Half, Toulouse
Ntamack and Dupont go together like peanut butter and jelly.
The two wonderkids of French rugby for quite some time now, Ntamack - who has played professionally for Toulouse since 2017 when he was an 18-year-old - is one of the top No. 10s in the world and on track to possibly surpass the career achievements of his father, Emile, who made nearly 50 appearances for the French national team in the mid-to-late 1990s.
With Romain sitting at 28 caps to his name at age 23, there's a bright future ahead for Les Bleus, and Toulouse, as long as they keep him and the team's other stars around.
Back in Black @StadeToulousain pic.twitter.com/z8rSdmTZ1U
— Romain Ntamack (@RomainNtamack) August 1, 2022
The World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year in 2019, Ntamack should thrive once again in a loaded Red and Blacks squad that features the likes of him, Dupont and other emerging French national team talent, such as fullback Melvyn Jaminet and lock Thibaud Flament. All players listed are ages 25 or younger.
And with nine total tries for his club in all competitions a year ago, Ntamack's game still has plenty of room to grow, as well.