The scrum half from Union Bordeaux-Bègles will replace Antoine Dupont against Italy on Friday evening.
The life of a scrum half in the shadow of Antoine Dupont is often thankless. Forced to chomp at the bit, to be content with crumbs and to confine himself to the role of eternal second-in-command without making the slightest wave, he is advised to assume the legacy of the great absentee, when the time comes to play. This is the tough mission of Maxime Lucu, propelled into the starting position during the last group match against Italy, Friday October 6, after the injury of the usual captain.
“It’s the logical next step, there has been a hierarchy for several years between Dupont and Lucu”, explains Vincent Clerc, former international winger and consultant for France Télévisions. This couldn’t be clearer. In 17 selections, the Bordeaux-Bègles player has five small starts, each time within a reshuffled team and against lesser nations. – Japan three times, Fiji and Uruguay.
Italy is undoubtedly closer to this division than to the summits, but Lucu will, on Friday, lead the “premium” team in a high-stakes match for the first time in his career. “He is ready to take on this role”promised his pivotal partner Matthieu Jalibert, at a press conference on Monday. “They are two different players, conceded Grégory Alldritt on Wednesday. We work on strategies, circuits, launches, we don’t work with people. It doesn’t matter who’s playing.”
11 minutes of play on average with executives
The man with the smooth skull is, however, part of all the Blues’ recent successes. He even perfectly embodies the notion of “finisher”. His 12 appearances, in the Dupont relay, are often short: on average, Lucu spends 11 minutes on the field, with the peak being his 28 minutes against South Africa, in November 2022 in Marseille. Entering prematurely after the captain’s red card, the Basque brought his composure in an ocean of chaos and greatly contributed to the asphyxiating success of the Blues (29-26).
“He is a strategist, very calm, he has an ability to maintain composure and manage pressure matches.”continues Vincent Clerc. “He’s been with the team for a few years, so he’s very familiar with pitching and philosophy.”confirms Dimitri Yachvili, consultant for France Télévisions. At 30 years old, Lucu has more of the makings of an experienced veteran than of a new kid. His status as captain and scorer during the last final stages with Bordeaux-Bègles attests to this.
Such a destiny did not necessarily flow naturally for the kid from Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle, a town of 7,000 inhabitants in the inland Basque Country. He grew up there and discovered rugby at the same time as his friend Charles Ollivon. “At first, I didn’t want to make it my jobhe confided for UBB Mag. Like everyone else, I wanted to be a firefighter (laughs). Then I started studying to be a site manager.”
The scrum half finally chose to pilot packs of forwards rather than works, and started professionally during an anonymous Biarritz-Aurillac in Pro D2, at 21 and a half years old. Its trajectory is significantly less straight than that of “Grand Charles”, revealed with the rival Bayonne and already selected for the Blues during the same year 2014.
Debut in Top 14 at 26
Alongside his older brother Ximun, Maxime Lucu trained in his favorite club and became captain. But the siblings have the misfortune of finding themselves in the middle of the lead years of Biarritz Olympique, stuck in a Pro D2 from which they cannot escape. The youngest is patient before, at the age of 26 during the summer of 2019, heading up the A63 to reach the regional capital. His transfer to Bordeaux-Bègles was finalized in the fall of 2018, a few weeks before the arrival of manager Christophe Urios. “I didn’t really like the way he played, I found it lacked speedadmitted the latter in June 2022. I asked the president if we couldn’t change, but it was too late.”
“I probably would have done the biggest stupid thing of my career if I hadn’t brought this guy in. He’s huge.”
Christophe Urios, ex-manager of Bordeaux-Bèglesat a press conference
In Gironde, Lucu changes world, discovers the Top 14, but immediately convinces Urios to make it a must. His adaptation is such that the Basque is called up by Fabien Galthié during his first list, in January 2020, after only 12 matches played in the elite. His complicity with Matthieu Jalibert is obvious, and the two men quickly establish themselves as a luxury “double” hinge, behind Antoine Dupont and Romain Ntamack.
“At this level, everyone is capable of playing together, but it’s important to have automatisms, if only in communication”, recalls Dimitri Yachvili, himself a former Biarritz scrum half.
“We can’t always communicate on the pitch, especially there, when the stadiums are full. It really comes down to sensations and feeling, and they have that.”
Dimitri Yachvili, consultant for France Télévisionsat franceinfo: sport
Friday, the UBB duo will celebrate their third joint start in the French team. “Max is a hard worker, he has his feet on the ground”, describes his accomplice Jalibert, five years his junior. And the opener continues the outlines of a rather laudatory portrait: “If I had to give one quality, it would be his leadership, his way of managing the link between forwards and three quarters and his kicking game, in addition to the fact that he is an excellent defender.” So many traits to compose the panoply of the perfect No. 9. “Here’s what I can say, he’ll give me his ticket later!”, laughs Jalibert. A few offerings from Lucu for his opener against Italy would probably fill this debt.