Have Montpellier recruited better than Toulon?

Probably not, but they’re not far off and it’s worth looking at.

We’ve all quite rightly been making a massive deal about the players Toulon have been signing in this off-season. The six biggest so far are: Ma’a Nonu, Quade Cooper, James O’Connor, Paul O’Connell, Duane Vermeulen and lastly Samu Manoa (who was described by ESPNscrum as potentially the best no. 8 in Europe). That’s an outrageous amount of talent with a total of 331 international caps between them.

A bit more quietly however, Montpellier have been working away. Firstly let’s not play down the fact they have signed 2007 World Cup winning coach Jake White. After the World Cup win he took five years off coaching, before taking over the Brumbies in 2012-2013. He went and led them to the Super Rugby final that year, where they only just went down 27-22 to the Chiefs in an excellent game. The Brumbies also beat the British and Irish Lions that year 14-12. He then popped over to the Sharks and led them to a Super Rugby Semi-Final. The man has a pretty decent record at both international and club level, doesn’t he?

Jake White, being South African himself, has gone for the Saracens approach to life and recruited 10 South Africans so far, including Pierre Spies, Bismarck du Plessis and Jannie du Plessis. That’s a lot of big, scary Afrikaaners. Alongside this they’ve picked up Nic White and Jesse Mogg from the Brumbies. These are two very good players who will definitely improve their side.

However let’s face it – Spies hasn’t been able to get a look in for the Springboks since 2013, while Vermeulen has been tearing it up; Jesse Mogg has 3 caps for Australia, while O’Connor has 44 despite being over a year younger.

Yet how much worth do you put on your front row? Montpellier now have a front row of Jannie at loose-head, Bismarck at hooker and Nicolas Mas at tight-head. That’s probably the best club front row in the world. Toulon’s front row is probably the only part of their team that doesn’t make you lust. They started Xavier Chiocci, Guilhem Guirado and Carl Hayman against Clermont in the Champions Cup final. Hayman has now left, which is a big loss, and they are probably expecting Levan Chilachava to step up. The 23 year old Georgian is very good, but definitely not as proven as the rest of the players Toulon have in every other position. The back-ups they have signed are Matt Stevens and Salesi Ma’afu, who again are good but not maybe what you would expect from Toulon.

It could easily turn out that Pierre Spies joining Ouedraogo and Ben Mowen forms one of the best back row units in Europe. Nic White and Francois Trich-Duc should be able to form an excellent half-back pairing as well. As stated earlier, Jake White has an incredible record.

Obviously overall Toulon are still on paper a good step stronger than Montpellier and they have of course, done incredible business so far. But Montpellier have been pretty clever and have now built an excellent starting XV with a superb coach behind them. They aren’t far off provided everyone stays fit.