Le Temps des Boni

"France is essential to rugby history. You can’t have a list without a French book in it. If the French weren’t there, the game wouldn’t be the game as we know it today. It would just be a jamboree with former colonies and the Empire. The fact that France took up rugby through the 20th century meant that there was a platform for it to become a global game. If it had been an Empire-only game, it wouldn’t have been so attractive or have believed in itself that it could spread. France – and also, gradually, Italy – is embracing the game, so we know that it’s not something that’s limited to the culture of Empire. This book embodies the romantic French approach to rugby. They have a tenderness for rugby that comes out in this book. It’s full of great quotes like this: ‘God was a centre three quarter, the Devil is a little bit Australian, a little bit rugby league.’ It’s actually a biography of two brothers, the Bonaventure brothers, who embodied the French flair for rugby in the 1960s – they took risks and were very nonchalant about the way they approached the game. The biography of these romantic players demonstrates the romantic French attitude to the game. The French write about rugby in the same way we English write about cricket. In France, the really good sportswriters write about rugby, whereas here the good writers write about cricket. That’s part of the challenge of being a great sportswriter in France."