French adventure forces Nick Abendanon to start all over again

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/apr/02/nick-abendanon-clermont-auvergne-northampton

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Twice in the opening 22 seconds of last weekend’s Top 14 showdown between Clermont Auvergne and Stade Français in Paris, Nick Abendanon got his hands on the ball. The first was as stand-in scrum half, the second to launch a sweeping move from under the shadow of his own posts with Zac Guildford. It’s what Abendanon has been doing all season and why, in eight months, he has become such a favourite with the Clermont faithful.

Unfortunately in Paris things did not quite work out. First Guildford’s return pass suggested the New Zealand wing’s radar needed adjusting, then Abendanon spent the rest of the afternoon on the wrong end of a nine-try thriller. One player in particular, the Stade centre Jonathan Danty, a man who Abendanon thinks is overdue a French cap and who he describes as a Mathieu Bastareaud “but with more skill and better things to offer”, left a considerable impression. There have been better ways to prepare for a European Rugby Champions Cup quarter-final against Northampton.

The ball of muscle from Stade even knocked the smile from Abendanon’s face, which is particularly unusual, because the former Bath full-back is as happy with Clermont as they are with him, something that has not always been the case with British players moving to France recently.

For a start, Dan Lydiate did not hang around long with Racing Métro and Jim Hamilton was at Montpellier for only one of the three years he had planned. Jamie Roberts is also rumoured to be leaving Paris, along with Jonathan Sexton.

Lydiate also suffered at the hands of one particularly cruel website which had him at No5 in a “top of the flops” chart (Toby Flood, at Toulouse, was No1) early in the season while, Jonathan Davies, a team-mate of Abendanon’s, admits that game time was hard to come by. Even Leigh Halfpenny, the Lions’ best player during their 2013 tour to Australia, had a less-than-welcome arrival at the French and European champions, Toulon.

Abendanon understands just why this might happen. “You come over to France and the squads are so big and there are so many good players that it’s difficult to stamp your authority,” says the full-back, who this week is on the cover of the French bi-monthly magazine Sports Montagne. “You’re used to playing every week in England for your club then you come over here and start from scratch. You have to prove yourself and when I came over I don’t think 90% of the team even knew or had heard of me.

“It’s almost like you have to start again and you’re going to get judged on how you are going to play, which is fair enough. They pay for you to come over and they expect you to deliver. If you have one or two bad games first up, then you are on the back foot to get the love from the crowd. Luckily for me I started to do well and things blossomed.”

Abendanon has hardly missed a big game for Clermont this season and when he plays it is usually for 80 minutes. So far he has been on the field for every minute of all Clermont’s Champions Cup games and one look at the competition stats shows why. He is far from being the biggest in European ranks – 5ft 10in and 13st to be precise – but he’s way ahead as the player with the most ground made – more than even Steffon Armitage at Toulon – and he has made more clean breaks than Chris Ashton and Simon Zebo and beaten more defenders than George North.

For someone who, in part, left Bath because he had not had a call from England in getting on for seven seasons, Abendanon is playing the best rugby of his career. But that is the rub. Like Armitage, because he is playing in France, Abendanon is highly unlikely to add to the two England caps he treasures, although he can understand why England are so reluctant to pick from those who have chosen to earn their living abroad.

“In a way it is disappointing,” he says, “but I totally see why England have that rule. They think that all the young talent will be getting the ship to France. But in reality this, for me, has been one of the best experiences. I’m so glad I decided to leave the Rec because you have to prove yourself, lift yourself up again. You have to work bloody hard to integrate and to play against some of … well … the best in the world, and you’re doing that every week which can only be good for a player.

“I know you hear some bad stories – that Toby Flood hasn’t had the best of runs – but for myself it’s been amazing and hearing some of the contracts which the English clubs are offering I don’t think they are too far off what the French clubs play. It’s not really about the money.”

In everything Abendanon says, he is clearly intent on staying in the Massif Central for some time. He and his fiancee Florence – “she loves the place as well’ – plan to marry this summer, they have an apartment with a terrace overlooking Clermont-Ferrand and even the French lessons are going well.

“I always loved the old Bath faithful and the Rec was a beautiful place to play,” Abendanon says. “It’s very different here in terms of the structure of the stadium [the Stade Marcel-Michelin], being a big concrete bowl. The noise is on a different level.”

As Northampton will discover on Saturday, it is the steep concrete stands and the sound bouncing off them which helps makes Stade Marcel-Michelin such a difficult place to play and why so few sides win there. That and the intimidating nature of French rugby.

“The Prem is physical but from my experience in the last eight months it’s a step up,” Abendanon says. “The players are pretty massive and there are some big impacts. You really feel it on Sunday when you wake up.”