A final throw, a last charge to stop the Castrais Geoffrey Palis, then the K.-O. Guilhem Guirado signed a singular goodbye to rugby this Friday. Farewell to the game during a final started with Montpellier, then ended with a concussion and a second title of champion of France in his career. This trophy has a taste of revenge, a snub at the end of a career as magnificent as it is tortuous. From the title of world champion under 21 in 2006 to this 277th match in the Top 14, Guirado has gone through many trials and storms. But always with authenticity, and a taste for unfailing combat.
Emotion begins to rise for Guilhem Guirado as the @MHR_official rush to victory in this #FinalTOP14 ! #COMHR
pic.twitter.com/MbKR7ZMl8u— francetvsport (@francetvsport) June 24, 2022
Guirado is 1,000 stories in one, not often happy. But from these roller coasters there is an Ariadne’s thread, of human values in the service of a player who is recognized and appreciated wherever he has been. In Perpignan, where it all started, we probably still remember this youngster with the face of a slightly chubby toddler who won his first Brennus with Usap in 2009. This first final, the Cérétan had played it in the substitute skin. A year later, he started against Clermont, but lost. The first verse of the ritornello.
Barely landed in Toulon in the summer of 2014, he became European champion a few months later. If Guirado asserts himself as one of the references in his position, the Rouge et Noir stumble in the final of the French championship in 2016 and 2017 and experience the end of a cycle of excellence. Until his last years in Montpellier, where he had committed three years knowing that it would be his last contract, the hooker will never have known a linear and virtuous trajectory. If the MHR was at the party this Friday in the Dionysian enclosure, it was on the verge of relegation to Pro D2 a year earlier. But in the face of adversity, the 36-year-old arched his back to get up better.
His last season will remain as an illustration of this long river that is anything but calm: injury to the biceps from the first match of the season in Toulon, four months of absence, a serious spat with his coach, Philippe Saint-André, to have was released at half-time for his last match against his former club Perpignan in April, before the tears of happiness of a qualification in the final. He only took part in it during the first half hour of play because of a collision with Mathieu Babillot.
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He passed the protocol at a run, wishing to find the arena and savor each of the precious minutes … so much so that he had to go back to the locker room a second time, in general incomprehension. He was ultimately not allowed to return to the field.
By dint of trauma, the leather has become thicker. The XV of France will have tanned him to the bone. For the general public, he will perhaps remain this captain – one of the most capped of the Blues (32, in the top 5 in the history of the selection) – of a ship in full drift during the Guy Novès years and Jacques Brunel (2016-2019). In reconstruction, in a generation hole, the French formation will have experienced a long fall, from humiliation in the quarter-finals of the 2015 World Cup (62-13 against New Zealand) to that more narrow four years later against the Welsh, again in quarters (20-19). How many times Guirado had to appear in front of the microphones, his jaw clenched in frustration at failures…
“I am very proud of having represented my country, even if there were difficult results to manage and periods of crisishe said with this unwavering sincerity to Ouest-France on June 18. But I showed selflessness, I’m proud of it. I remained an upright and trustworthy person.“
The beautiful exchange between @guilhem_guirado and the President of the Republic @EmmanuelMacron #FinalTOP14 pic.twitter.com/fz5sIJ3GsV
– Canal Rugby Club (@CanalRugbyClub) June 24, 2022
From this period, there will remain an immense frustration. The kind to make people forget that behind the bad luck hid a ferocious defender (record holder of the number of tackles in a match of the Six Nations Tournament), indestructible in envy, and a relentless hard worker who never stopped progressing in the shadow.
“He will have marked the history of Montpellier in three years with usunderlines Mathieu Austruy, “team manager” of the Hérault training center, at franceinfo: sport. He has real values of rugby, of friendship, like ‘Fufu’ [Fulgence Ouedraogo, qui arrête aussi sa carrière]. During the week, he is the one who prepares the scrums, he works on the video, he infuses all this work of seriousness, concentration and rigor into the week and also his joie de vivre.”
His last match will have come to an end, after this tackle from Mathieu Babillot, legal but unfortunate, while Guirado was falling, sending his head into the shoulder of his vis-à-vis. Nevertheless, the outcome, before a retraining away from rugby as an insurer, will remain happy. “What do I remember from this final? I take it allhe replied to France Télévisions after the final whistle. The preparation, the words of President Macron which touched me enormously, because he recalled the painful months of the French team where it was not easy every day, where it was necessary to get up constantly .”
“Now I can stop, I’m getting old”, he joked. Guilhem Guirado wanted to go out the front door: mission accomplished.