Rocky Elsom and a group of Australians took over a French rugby club, aiming to restore the club to former glory days. It ended with bitterness and a prison sentence.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.To understand French rugby, the small southern town of Narbonne is not a bad place to start. Surrounded by bigger and wealthier neighbours like Perpignan and Toulouse, Narbonne always prided itself on its ability to compete against the best regardless of the odds. Rugby levelled the playing field and consistently brought pride to a place that would otherwise be largely ignored by the rest of France.
“You know, a lady said to me in the market, she runs a fruit store there, and she just looked at me one day ... and she just pointed a knife at me. She had a knife, she was cutting up something, and she just said, ‘You Australians, you ruined us’. I felt deep shame. Not that I’d done anything, I’d done everything right.”
Narbonne was selected by FG Management due to the involvement as a player and official of Anthony Hill, a former Randwick player who was club president before Elsom and who still lives in the town.Over the previous decade, Elsom had become renowned as one of the world’s best rugby players. He had a stint after school with the Bulldogs NRL club before making his debut for the Waratahs in 2003 and the Wallabies in 2005.
Elsom also assumed the duties of running Narbonne, despite having no experience in sports administration. spoke to several Australians connected to Narbonne at the time who declined to comment on the record but painted a chaotic picture of unfulfilled promises and distrust. Elsom conceded he became “unpopular” in town when he began changing the squad in 2014, and he explained this week some of the secrecy was necessary.
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