WHILE YOU MIGHT BE able to trace my cognitive decline to the moment I picked up an oval ball and ran with it, I pinpoint my time at Toulon as the moment it started to come into a jarring, fuzzy type of focus.
The irony, if that’s the correct way to describe it, is that if I had any glory years as a rugby player, the bulk of them happened while playing for this awakened giant of European rugby. After a rocky start, Rugby Club Toulonnais embraced me, and I embraced the club. The city, arguably the least glamorous town on the French Riviera, was made for me. It breathed rugby through its pores. I loved representing the people and the city. But the rugby was brutal, relentless. Playing with pain was not just
