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The shocking abuse Toulon fans have been sending Julian Savea

Former All Black Julian Savea.

Julian Savea’s wife Fatima and brother Ardie have hit back at Toulon fans on social media after the former All Black was told he is ‘not welcome’ at the club anymore.

Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal delivered a stunning interview condemning Savea after the side’s 19-10 defeat to Agen last week – the side’s tenth loss of the year.

“I’m going to ask for a DNA test,” Boudjellal told French radio station RMC. “They must have swapped him on the plane [when he joined from the Hurricanes last year]. If I were him I would apologise and go back to my home country.”

“I’ve told him that he was free to go and wasn’t welcome at Toulon any more.”

Toulon fans haven’t been kind to Savea on social media, wishing cancer upon his mother and calling him “fatman”, to which his wife Fatima responded.

“Take a minute to think about how your words can affect someone’s life and their mental health,” she tweeted.

“And people wonder why mental health in rugby had become a big problem. Take a minute to be considerate of people’s feelings instead of bashing them behind a keyboard or phone screen.

“With rugby you are only as good as your team is. It’s not an individual sport it’s a team sport and sometimes you can be let down by your team.

“But that shouldn’t give anyone the right to ridicule a player and their livelihood because no one knows what these players go through on a daily basis and the struggles they face.”

https://twitter.com/_timasavea/status/1096931172787970048

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https://twitter.com/_timasavea/status/1096907529760628737

Savea’s brother, All Blacks loose forward Ardie, also stepped in to defend his brother.

“This type of carry on from [Boudjellal] won’t exactly entice other players to play for @RCTofficiel,” former Wallaby and Toulon winger Drew Mitchell tweeted.

“Business or not you just don’t treat ppl like this. Good luck wherever you play next bro! @juliansavea7”

Ardie retweeted Mitchell’s message of support, adding: “F***ing Amen”.

Julian himself also responded on Twitter, choosing to take the higher ground after tweeting “putting all the negativity behind me and heading into this week with a positive attitude.”

“Whether I am welcomed or not I am still contracted to my team and I will continue to train week in and week out with my brothers.”

Julian was capped by the All Blacks 54 times and scored 46 tries, giving him one of the best try scoring strike rates in international rugby history. A loss of form saw him slip out of favour with the All Blacks and eventually the Hurricanes, at which point to decided to make the switch to Europe.

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t
takata 50 minutes ago
Can Les Bleus avoid a Black-wash in New Zealand?

The men at the beating heart of France’s first Test effort at Dunedin – number eight Guillard, the four half-backs [Le Garrec or Jauneau at nine, Segonds or Hastoy at 10], Fickou at 12 and Attissogbe at full-back] are all in imminent danger of playing over 2000 minutes, or over 30 games, or both. Overall, it is very hard to see what France is gaining in the player welfare equation. It is simply replacing one set of overworked players with another.

A very simple explanation is that, bar Joris Seconds at Bayonne, none of those players, Guillard (Lyon), Le Garrec (Racing), Hastoy (La Rochelle), Fickou (Racing) and Attissogbe (Pau) clocked much time during the highest level games of the club season which ended 7 days before the first test; their club didn’t qualify for the European Champions Cup final rounds and/or didn’t play the Top 14 play off.


So they all had quite a few off weekends that barely none of the first list could have enjoyed up to the end of June, except those injured or not in their prime. ie. Baille started only 5 games for Toulouse and 0 for France during the whole 2024-2025 season -explaining his stats- and it would have make no sense to send him over younger lads.


Joris Seconds (28), has a lot of game sheets, but shared all his game time at Nr. 10 with Camille Lopez (who is retired now); ie. he only clocked 108’ during his two last games in play off. He could also fully rest during the 6 Nations when Top 14 wasn’t playing.


Secondly, bar Mikaël Guillard, this second list was also made of players that weren’t used at all, or very little, during the whole 6 Nations. Guillard started 3/5 games and clocked 187’, Attissogbe 160’ - 2/2 start, Fickou 80’ - 1/1 start, Le Garrec 50’ - 0/3 start, plus a few more minutes by others.


Thirdly, it’s clear that Galthié wanted some preparation time and a full game (England A) before Dunedin. Most of his first 23 just did that as they ended their season on 7 June. His selection of 42 players was planned in 3 groups pending their availability: 28 + 9 + 5. Some players joined after the first group but could still make the game sheet at Dunedin because they were obviously needed.


But, as Galthié usually do, the first test team will rotate and very few will actually play all three tests (maybe Le Garrec & Seconds?). From what we know already, neither Guillard (@ 8) nor Villière (@ 11) will be on the next game sheet - so your projections on game time / game played are not worth the time you took to type them:


Here is the probable team for next test (with age and club):


Backs: Barré (22, Paris), Attissogbe (20, Pau), Depoortere (22, Bordeaux)

Centers: Barrassi (27, Toulouse), Gailleton (22, Pau)

Halfs: Seconds (28, Bayonne), Le Garrec (23, La Rochelle ex-Racing)

3rd Row: Van Tonder (27, Perpignan), Abadie (27, Toulon), Bochaton (24, Bordeaux)

2nd Row: Halagahu (23, Toulon), Brenan (23, Toulouse)

1st Row: Colombe (27, Toulouse ex-La Rochelle), Barlot (28, Castres), Erdocio (25, Montpellier)


Bench: Bourgarit (27, La Rochelle), Mallez (24, Toulouse/Aix), Montagne (24, Clermont), Taofifenua (34, Racing), Woki (26, Bordeaux ex-Racing), Vergnes-Taillefer (28, Bordeaux), Daubagna (31, Pau), Hastoy (28, La Rochelle).

24 Go to comments
S
Soliloquin 1 hour ago
Can Les Bleus avoid a Black-wash in New Zealand?

Thanks for that article! The analogy is very interesting, and it helps opening up the player welfare debate around the number of games and minutes played.

Better rested players mean more quality rugby. It means less risk of injury, so less risk of losing money by paying a salary to an injured player.

But it also means choices of games.


For those French players who were not involved in the Top14 playoffs, yet approaching and breaking the 2000’/25 games criteria, like Fickou, Auradou, Le Garrec or Guillard, were the 3 weeks enough to rest between the last game of the season and the first test?

While bearing in mind there was still a game the week before against a strong English squad at Twickenham.


Top 14 clubs and the LNR (but also the ECPR) need to understand that they hugely participate in the fatigue of players - LBB stated that he was utterly exhausted by the season 2 days ago. And adding this World Club competition is scary, scarily resembling the current World Club competition in football held in the US, which pushes some players to go beyond 70 games/year…


Would a restriction of games per player possible, so that they could be involved in Summer tours a possibility? With maybe part of the salary taken care by the French Federation, proportionate to the number of missed games?

How such a compensation could come? Can the French Federation find the funds for that?

What is the number of games possible? How would fare the clubs fighting relegation - like how could Stade Français accept this season, when they saved themselves almost during the last round, that Léo Barré could stop playing for the club if he was to go on tour against NZ with so much at stake?


I have no clue for all of that, but I have no doubt solutions can be found.

24 Go to comments
LONG READ
LONG READ Brendan Fanning: 'So far the tour on Australian soil has lacked jeopardy.' Brendan Fanning: 'So far the tour on Australian soil has lacked jeopardy.'
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