Ollie Phillips column: Snow, injuries and playing away - all in a day's work at Stade

By Ollie Phillips, 08 December 2010

The New Year has kicked off with a bang in Top 14 with three games in nine days, but unfortunately I’ve not been able to take any part so far due to an annoying injury that I picked up back in November. I didn’t really know what it was but it was getting progressively worse, and then before the two Ulster games in the Heineken Cup I couldn’t train all week – I just literally turned up and played the games because I couldn’t walk on my foot it was so painful.

Christmas allowed me to rest it for 10 days and I was hoping it would settle down, but it hasn’t really. It is a lot better than it was but I’ve now found out that I’ve torn the fascia underneath my foot and there’s nothing I can do except rest it and allow it to heal. I’m hoping that I can be fit maybe for the Heineken Cup match against Edinburgh (on Jan 23), but if not then hopefully for the Top 14 match away to leaders Castres (on Jan 28).

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It’s pretty annoying but “c’est la vie” as they say here. I guess injuries are inevitable with the sport we play and I’ll take this one over a longer more serious one, but it is frustrating. I could probably get through a match, but then I’d be back to square one afterwards, so all I can do is rest. I’m not entirely sure how it happened but it was during the game against SCA Albi (at the beginning of November) and it could have been because I had one stud longer than another in my boot, and that buggered up my foot. Whatever caused it, it’s been really frustrating because I love playing for Stade Francais.

Anyone for scrum-half?

But I’m not the only one out injured at the moment, and if I’d been fit I might even have had a game at scrum-half. That’s certainly not something I was expecting but we’ve lost three scrum-halves in three weeks, which has caused a few problems. It’s sod’s law I suppose. Julien Dupuy was banned, then Noel Oelschig and Charlie Davies both got injured in successive games.

It’s tough on Charlie and he’s obviously devastated that he could only manage half an hour against Montauban before coming off with a sprained ankle, but it’s been a cracking season for him already. He’s come from relative obscurity at Nottingham and he’s only 19 years old, so he’s got plenty of time to go and there’s no doubt he’ll be a cracking player when he’s older.

With those three out - and Benjamin Tardy not registered for the Heineken Cup - it’s posed a few problems with who should play there against Bath. To be honest they were talking about me having a go there as a temporary measure, but I’m not sure I could play there. The injury has put paid to that now anyway.

Talking of the Heineken Cup, we had an amazing experience in the second game against Ulster. It was supposed to be played in Brussels but had to be moved back to the Stade Jean Bouin in Paris due to the snow. Indeed, if we didn’t manage to play the game within 48 hours we would have forfeited the match, which would have been disastrous. We then had 300 supporters helping to sweep the snow off the pitch to make sure it could go ahead, so we owe a massive ‘thank you’ to all the fans and staff who helped.

A different league

Obviously there’s a lot of interest in the forthcoming Heineken Cup matches but we’ve got a big game against Biarritz at the Stade de France before that. People have been talking about us not having won an away game all season but I think Top 14 is a different league this year than it has ever been. I think it’s much more competitive and people need to appreciate that fact. There are teams losing all over place – like Castres losing at Bourgoin; Toulon being turned over by Clermont and even Albi beating the odd team from time to time. It just goes to show that Top 14 is massively competitive this season and I think the most important thing is that you’re in the mix at the end of the season when it comes to the top six. That would qualify us for next season’s Heineken Cup and the end of season league play-offs.

Of course, ideally we would love to be winning our games away and at home, and you want to be hitting your straps when it comes to January and February, but there’s enough quality in our side. We just need to string a few wins together at the moment, even if that means ‘winning ugly’, and we were obviously really disappointed with our performance against Montpellier – when we lost 25-23. We pretty much had the game in the bag and somehow we let it go, which was poor from our perspective. At 23-9 up a quality side like Stade should be closing that out, but fair play to Montpellier for coming back and turning it into a bit of a crackerjack game in the end.

But, despite one or two disappointing results, I’m loving it over here in France. There’s a huge expectation when you play for Stade and that was the main reason why I signed. I wanted to come here and I wanted to win every week, so from our perspective recent results have been frustrating. But if we beat Biarritz this weekend, and then Castres in our next league game, then we’re right back in the mix again.

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