This Saturday, July 5, the XV of France lost without demerit (31-27) outside against the All-Blacks. This first official match of the Blues summer tour allowed Rabah Slimani to find a jersey he had not worn since the 2019 season and the World Cup in Japan. Upstream of the meeting, he confided in the more complicated period that he recently crossed.
Rabah Slimani is now 35 years old and there is no risk to say that he is closer to the end of his career than at the start. The Leinster’s right pillar found the blue jersey this Saturday, July 5 and honored its 58th selection with the XV of France. This return with the group of Fabien Galkié, Slimani may not even hope for it. He had not played in blue since the 2019-2020 season.
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Before the meeting, finally lost at the end of the suspense (31-27), against the All Blacks, the French confided with the team on the difficult moments he has gone through in recent years. The pillar begins by telling his relationship with Jordie Barrett, his new teammate in Leinster.
“Do you have news for the French team?”
“For weeks, Jordie hasn’t stopped asking me:” So do you have news for the French team? It would be incredible to meet here. “I answered him no,” he recalls. When he learned that he could have a place in the group, he says he waited for “the last moment, to be sure”. He says he “brought back a gift” to his teammate, “a painting” made by one of his friends who is a painter and is particularly satisfied to have been able to find him in this different context.
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An anecdote that illustrates the proximity between the two players. Above all, Slimani was not just as comfortable some time ago. “A year ago I wondered if I was not going to stop rugby,” he reveals. Starting from Clermont to join the Irish Leinster club, this transfer gave him his passion for his profession. “Leo Cullen was an extra coach, he put me in confidence as soon as I arrived,” said the crowned pillar champion of the URC. After his title, inevitably, he was overwhelmed by emotion because, he says it without hiding, after the Covid, he “made a depression” which he took “a year and a half” to recover. At 35, Rabah Slimani regains the desire he had during his beginnings in Sarcelles and rediscovers the Blues, 5 years later, with the same wonder.
