Agen vs Bath - 18th October

When I found out I was spending the year in the Lot-et-Garonne, I immediately checked out the sports teams in the area and Agen Rugby Club was the only one. So when the opportunity arose to see and English club play here I couldn’t miss it. Getting tickets was easy, €11 online for seats directly behind the posts. Stade Armandie is easy enough to find, heading south on Rue President Carnot from the station for about ten minutes then taking a right once you see the floodlights. Size wise, the stadium is similar to Kingsholm, if The Shed was a grandstand and the hospitality stand at one end wasn’t there. The official attendance was around 4,000, which surprised me seeing as Bath are Agen’s only rival for the qualification spot. The atmosphere was akin to any other rugby stadium, big queues at the bars, which sell bread and pate to accompany the beer.

Not a bad view for €11

The lack of a stand at one end meant the wind was hammering into the ground making life very difficult for the full-backs and the place kickers. From what I’d been told about Agen from locals, I was expecting Bath to dominate proceedings from the outset and throughout. However I, along with Bath, was rattled by Agen’s fast start and first-half dominance. Being sat at the end Bath were attacking I was expecting to see a lot of action close up but I ended up straining to see what was going on down the other end. Agen were dominating every area and Bath barely had any possession. Despite conceding an early try and spending little time in Agen’s 22, Bath went in at half time only trailing by 2 points, thanks to a rather fortuitous try from Michael Claasens, who pounced on the ball after the home side had messed up a scrum on their own five metre line.

As the second half started, I was expecting to see a lot more action close-up, after Agen dominating possession in the first half, but Bath came out firing, scored two quick tries and looked to be heading for a win. The home fly-half, Philippe Lagarde, had other ideas. In impossibly windy conditions, he landed some monstrous kicks, not missing all night and putting his team 22-20 up with minutes to play. With the home crowd buzzing for the win, Bath mounted another attack, breaking tackles easily, as had been the case in the second half, an were creeping towards the try line, and the victory. After an agonizing few phases on the 5-metre line, a heap of players went down under the posts and the crowd went silent. The ref went upstairs to check with the TMO and the try was awarded, the away team players went bananas and the stadium emptied, all within 30 seconds. Bath had snatched an unlikely victory despite scoring four tries to Agen’s one. The second half dominance, spearheaded by a herculean effort in the scrum, proved the difference and even Stephen Donald, or Stephen Biggs as the local paper called him, having an off day (2 from 6) didn’t prove too costly. 

Stephen Biggs, Bath's new fly-half

After the dramatic end to the game, the 30-odd away fans gathered around the tunnel for the customary post-match analysis with the players, along with a few cheesy photographs! The Bath players seemed genuinely glad to have some support in what was a hostile arena at some points. They deserved that gratitude a great deal as Agen is not the easiest place to reach from south west England. Speaking to a few fans, the simplest journey seemed to be to fly to Bergerac from Southampton and then rent a car for the hour or so trip. Although the tickets to the game were cheap, the travel can’t have been and the players really appreciated the vocal support from a small corner of the ground. I couldn’t have chosen a better time to go to my first game, not only was the game a fantastic contest, complete with last play try, I got to experience the French passion for rugby first hand, when a home fan approached me after the final whistle and told me, “Doucement!!” which in English would probably translate to “You better pipe down!” Completely dumfounded by this, I took a closer look at this man as he walked off, and apparently this was a bad idea, as he returned to ask me if we had a problem. Holding back the laughter I assured him that there was no problem, and to my relief he was ushered away by a few more home fans leaving the ground. I knew that they took rugby seriously in this neck of the woods, but I never thought that my polite support of the opposition was offensive, especially seeing as Agen still had a chance to make it through to the knockout stages of the Amlin Challenge Cup.  Not even that small confrontation could spoil my first trip to Agen, if anything, it made it an even more complete event.