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Opinion
This is the third part of a series about French rugby league.
The first part looked at the current state of the game and its prospects.
The second part went back to the beginning and the meteoric rise of French rugby league in the 1930s.
Today, we look at the glory years of the 1950s and the results of nearly a generation of the game’s development in France.
It’s the story of the two kings of French rugby league. The legacy of the great Jean Galia and the rich harvest of Puig ‘Pipette’ Aubert.
Galia is rightly recognised as one of the pioneers of international rugby league, alongside James Lomas of England, Dally Messenger of Australia and Albert Baskerville of New Zealand.
The four are immortalised on the Courtney Goodwill Trophy, the unofficial World Cup before the official tournament was established in 1954.
Galia was a remarkable man. He was a rugby union international and an amateur heavyweight boxing champion. He was not only France’s first captain, but also the driving force behind French rugby league’s establishment; an organiser of dissidents and a student of his adopted game.
He was a successful businessman, the owner of a chain of cinemas in south west France. While it’s not clear if he fought with the French resistance during the war, as some of his rugby league team mates did, he certainly assisted French Jews fleeing the Nazis.
Galia passed away in 1949 at the age of just 43, two years before the great triumph of 1951.
France had found a new trailblazer, though. Puig Aubert, the man who would take them to the top.
Contemporary accounts of Aubert depict something like a hybrid of Eric Simms and Tom Trbojevic, a prolific point scorer and freakish athlete who could turn a laconic stroll into explosive brilliance in the blink of an eye.
Even before France’s famous series victory over the Kangaroos in 1951, Aubert was regarded as arguably the best player in the world and at least the equal of Australia’s little master, Clive Churchill.
By the time France had completed its series victory and attained the Courtney Goodwill Trophy for the first time, with a resounding 35-14 victory over the Kangaroos at the Sydney Cricket Ground, commentators were gushing.
Aubert’s men were lauded by rugby league News as “standard-bearers” and “the most spectacular rugby league team ever to visit Australia.”
On their return to France, the players were greeted by a crowd of thousands in Marseille. Aubert had reportedly been offered significant money to play in Sydney and was later voted France’s sportsman of the year.
It wasn’t just the series victory, the Goodwill and the accolades that made this a triumph. It was the way they did it.
France had deliberately eschewed the methodical ruthlessness of the Australians and the conservatism of the English to forge their own style. A style based on attacking, unstructured play and risky passing.
It was a style that continued to work. France beat Australia at home in the 1952-53 Test series and again at the 1954 World Cup, before being narrowly denied by Great Britain in the inaugural World Cup Final at Paris.
The 1955 Test series win in Australia was in some ways even more impressive than the victory in 1951. France was without the injured Aubert. They lost the first Test of the series to Australia at Sydney and found themselves 12 points down in the second Test at Brisbane, before rallying to win 29-28 and then clinch the series at Sydney three weeks later.
Looking back more than six decades later, this is all tinged with sadness.
The seeds of France’s success in the 1950’s had been planted by Jean Galia and Co. during the boom years of the 1930s.
The seeds of France’s inexorable decline were planted during the darkness of World War II.
A new generation capable of taking on the world like the great team of Aubert never emerged. Money, assets, players, supporters and sponsors were lost, some forever.
Former French rugby League player Puig-Aubert poses in front of a large print showing him playing against Australia in 1951 at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Patrick Riviere/Getty Images)
There are those who’ll tell you that French rugby league should have picked itself up, dusted itself off and built again. They’re right, of course. But it’s not always that simple.
I know some people who’ve been through difficult times and have bounced back.
I knew a man who lost almost everything. He remained a good man until his final day. But something of his spirit and resilience had been lost forever.
*Source material:
Rylance, M (2012), The Forbidden Game: The untold story of French rugby league, League Publications Ltd
Rugby League News (1951), via National Library of Australia, editions of 2 June, 21 July and 15 August
Rugby League News (1955), via National Library of Australia, edition of 23 July.
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