Aurelien Rougerie, Clermont Auvergne's talisman, talks frankly about Top 14 heartbreak ans the Heineken Cup with Stephen Jones in The Times.
"If ever sporting misery was personified, its name last June was Aurelien Rougerie. He was inconsolable. He was called “an extraordinary player” by Bernard Laporte, the former France coach. Rene Fontes, the president of Clermont Auvergne, the club Rougerie captains and that begin their Heineken campaign next weekend, said: “Aurelien is our franchise player, as the Americans call it. He is our marquee player. Our hero. He is the heart of the club.”
"Make that broken heart of the club. Rougerie was captured on television at the end of the French Championship final at the end of last season. Clermont had just lost a magnificent match to Perpignan, the latest of their 11 finals, the most of any French club. They have won none of them. “Sometimes you feel that the current group, and maybe even this club itself, is fated not to become champions,” Rougerie said in the hour of defeat.
"Most of the truly great rugby clubs in any country are strongly identified with the community around them. Rougerie, 29, is effectively a local boy, from Beaumont, Puy de Dome, near Montferrand, where Clermont play. The club was created before the first world war by the Michelin Tyre Company, for the use of their employees, and the current stadium is still called Marcel Michelin, after its founder. Their desperation to finally win the French Championship typifies the dilemma of many French clubs when it comes to the Heineken Cup."
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