After having formed a friendly from the municipal police of Occitania, a year and a half ago, municipal police in the South wished to continue the adventure. And create a national rugby team from XIII from scratch to organize international meetings. If the president is Toulouse, the Lézignanais Cyril Cabrol is at the maneuver on the logistical side. In a month, the team will take the road to Italy for their first match.
It has been tickling them for quite some time: a year and a half precisely. Today, it’s done: the XIII national rugby team of the municipal police was born. “Ludovic Maunier, player who is a municipal police officer in Toulouse, wanted the human adventure that we had started in 2023 continues, that we can enjoy new playing times”says Cyril Cabrol, a Lezignan municipal police officer who had already shown his organizational capacities.
A year and a half ago, in fact, at the head of a friendly group of Occitania agents, he had set up a meeting against the Australian team nsn Police Rugby League of New South Wales. A one -way match since the opponents then won largely in the mill on the score of 52 to 0: “We had set up the team in barely three months, we did what we could. So we thought it would be good for we continue and that we do not stay on this defeat which does not mean much in the end”.
We rejuvenated the team and integrated some fifteen
So, the recruitment, initially confined to the Occitanie region, extended to the whole of the South Great, a privileged land of Rugby in XIII: “We have players from Vaucluse, Toulouse, Pyrénées-Orientales, Montpellier, Aigues-Mortes. We have rejuvenated the team compared to the last time and integrated a few fifteen”, Explains the manager who also enlisted the essential Mickaël Tribillac to take on the role of captain.
If, at first, a meeting with the national team of Greece (the real one, not that of police officers) had been envisaged, it was ultimately in Italy that contacts were established: “I know Giole Celerino who is the coach of the national team and who played in Palau and Saint-Gaudens. He spoke of the possibility of organizing a match with us at a meeting of the FIRLA (Italian National Federation). But it was impossible because the team can only participate in official matches. On the other hand, the solution of a match against a selection, Lupi del Nord XIII, was proposed.
See you in Italy on June 7
For several weeks, the municipal police have thus resumed the training path, with the major difficulty of bringing together the most players at the same time, the jobs of time being difficult.
But good, good year year, the staff, composed of Tony Dugan, Allam Boumédienne (coaches), Sébastien Amiga (deputy coach), Julien Rozain, Patrice Pech (Inndants), Cyril Cabrol and Ludovic Maunier, will still have managed to organize seven opposition games before June 6. It is on this day that the 23 players, thanks to the mobilization of sponsors, of the departmental council, the city of Lézignan and the community of communes of the Lézignanese region Corbières-Minervois, will take the road to reach Colorno, north of Parma, where the meeting will take place, the next day: “We hope to be able to organize the return match in September and, already, we have other contacts for other meetings”, Insists Cyril Cabrol in discussion with the German German team (Germans who play in England).
What make us forget the Australian experience which, ultimately, was founder.
