HOW MUCH have things evolved at La Rochelle in recent memory? “Oh yes, some huge change,” says club sporting director Robert Mohr, the German who played from 2002 to 2012 and captained them into the Top 14 for a short stint in 2010.
Stade Rochelais are the reigning champions of Europe. But their recent history is one of steady climbing. In the early Noughties there were a couple of wins in their now-defunct version of a league cup. Then promotion, relegation, another promotion and then more recently a march up the Top 14 table, a European Challenge Cup runners-up medal, a losing final in the Champions Cup and then a town-shuddering win.
According to Mohr, everything has been part of a sustainable plan.
“There are moments when people live in the past – with Jean-Baptiste Élissalde or that generation who stayed so long in the top division. We always got compared to them. So we had to make them forget in a way.
“We changed a lot of coaches. When Serge Milas was
