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Northampton Saints vs. Bordeaux-Begles in the Investec Champions Cup final
Cardiff Principality Stadium Date: Saturday, May 24 Kick-off 14:45 BST
Joel recalls the conversation. And his own disbelief.
“Your son is running really quickly,” the physical trainer at Grenoble rang me and told me.
I inquired, “How fast?” and he said, “faster than anyone else in the club.” including professionals.
“I just said, “Really?”
Grenoble had just been removed from the French top flight at the time. And Louis, Joel’s son, was only 17, according to the age.
Even a father’s eye could not tell how quickly that was moving.
Louis had played fly-half prior to that season. Good, but not one that will inspire greatness.
He wasn’t on anyone’s radar up until he was 16 years old, Joel claims. He played for Grenoble, but he was not a member of their academy or the youth division.
He was not at all quick, one of the team’s skinniest, and physically impossible to dominate.
He suddenly grew up, though, at age 17.
He already had the skills, vision, kick-kicking, and step, but his speed and power were late.
When Louis combined those two ingredients, he was off, he claimed.
In 27 games this year, he has scored 31 tries.
The 21-year-old’s strike-rate has increased even higher with 19 in 14 games since the start of the year, thanks to a record-breaking eight tries in a single Six Nations campaign.
In all but one game since then, he has scored.
His top sprint speed, which is faster than any player, has been determined in five years of Premier League data collection, has been 37.8 kmh (23. 5 mph).
Northampton is his Bordeaux-Begles team’s next Northampton is their next Northampton is next on his supersonic wish list as his Bordeaux-Begles team prepares for Saturday’s Champions Cup final, and he wants to watch them play there in his supersonic final.
Bielle-Biarrey has been dreaming about this afternoon since he was five years old.
After his wife Sandrine became indignant with the boys’ back garden games, Joel took Louis and his brother Samuel to their neighborhood club, Seyssins in Grenoble.
Joel recalls that “they both loved it from the beginning.”
Louis would snuggle up next to a rugby ball during the day. His parents gave him a gift, starting with the red scrum cap that has become a trademark.
According to Joel, “Louis always said he wanted to be a professional rugby player when his primary school teacher asked what they wanted to be when some of the students said he wanted to be a fire fighter, while others said he wanted to be a doctor.”
I told him that he wouldn’t, that he would work as an engineer like his father!
However, those chances dramatically decreased after Bielle-Biarrey recorded those first eye-popping speeds in a Grenoble fitness test.
The fitness instructor made her next trip to Paris after hanging up on Joel.
Bielle-Biarrey’s stats broke the French union bar by being so impressive. Anyone who posed these numbers was required to call directly to Marcoussis, the union’s main office.
Bielle-Biarrey quickly blazed through a string of trials while still 17 years old and made the France Under-20 squad. To be involved, Joel had to abide by a waiver.
He made his 2021 Under-20 Six Nations debut against Italy just six days before the campaign’s closing try against Ireland.
Top 14 clubs snagged talent.
The early and enthusiastic pitch made by Bordeaux president Laurent Marti was ignored. In 2021, Bielle-Biarrey made the club’s intentions to train with the first team before playing for the under-21 side.
He made his senior France debut twenty months later. In a thrilling Rugby World Cup quarter-final against South Africa two months later, he was the starting wing.
He might just be the world’s best rugby player right now.
The rise has been quick, much like Bielle-Biarry himself.
He is trying his hardest to deal with it, Joel says, noting that he was the one who asked for autographs five years ago.
“It’s frustrating for him sometimes that not everyone can please him,” he said. When he leaves the dressing room, 300 people line up in anticipation.
He may still need to grab something to eat in his free time, which is 10, 20, 30 minutes before he boards the bus.
“This is what he dislikes,” he said.
One of the reasons he chose Bordeaux, a port city in south-west France, was because of it. He went to Racing 92, but he found Paris to be too crowded and bustling.
Bordeaux’s attack coach Noel McNamara claims Bielle-Biarrey has adopted his own style of small-town hustle, based on what he learned as a young teenage fly-half.
“Everyone starts out with the pace,” he said in Rugby Union Weekly, “but I believe that really undersells Louis’ worth.”
“Evidencing that he is quick, but I have worked with a lot of very quick people doesn’t always make them exceptional rugby players,” he said.
Louis’s pace, anticipation, timing, and preparation throughout the week are what define his approach.
His workrate, attitude, and mindset are all top-notch, and he has had a positive impact on those around him.
When he has the ball, they anticipate things to happen. Because Louis makes things happen, it gives them the confidence to work a little harder to be in support.
Joel is unsure of the source of the magic.
His own rugby career was brief, with him playing in the back row at university before enjoying a successful first half-season at East Kilbride while working as an intern in Glasgow at the beginning of the 1990s.
Although Sandrine isn’t particularly athletic, Joel points out that her heritage may have “spiced up the DNA” because she is from Reunion, a French overseas territory between Madagascar and Mauritius.
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