A blue and red blur in the most purple of patches - rugby's boy king Bielle-Biarrey

Yahoo

22-05-2025

Investec Champions Cup final: Northampton Saints v Bordeaux-Begles
Venue: Principality Stadium, Cardiff Date: Saturday 24 May Kick-off 14:45 BST
Coverage: Live TV coverage on Welsh language channel S4C on iPlayer, live radio coverage on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Northampton, with live text commentary on the BBC Sport website
Joel Bielle-Biarrey remembers the conversation. And his own disbelief.
"The physical trainer at Grenoble rang me and and said, 'Joel, your son is running really fast'.
"I asked 'how fast?' and he said, 'faster than anyone else in the club. Including the professionals.'
"I just said 'Really?'"
At the time, Grenoble had just been relegated from the French top flight. And Louis, Joel's son, was only 17.
Even to a father's eye, there had been little sign of that speed.
A season before, Louis had been a fly-half. A good one, but not earmarked for greatness.
"Until 16, he wasn't on anyone's radar," says Joel. "He was playing for Grenoble, but he wasn't part of their academy or the national age groups.
"He wasn't fast at all, one of the skinniest in the team, certainly not able to dominate physically.
"But at 17 he suddenly grew up.
"He already had the step, the vision, the kicking game, the skills, but the speed and power came late.
"When Louis had those two ingredients, and put everything together… pheh, he was off."
And he hasn't stopped since.
This season, he has scored 31 tries in 27 matches.
Since the turn of the year, via a record-breaking eight tries in a single Six Nations campaign, the 21-year-old's strike-rate has revved even higher, with 19 in 14 games.
He has scored in all but one game he has played in during 2025.
His top sprint speed has been measured at 37.8 kmh (23.5 mph) - faster than any player has managed in five years of collecting the same data in football's Premier League.
He is a blue and red blur, in the most purple of patches.
Next in his supersonic sights are Northampton as his Bordeaux-Begles team prepare for Saturday's Champions Cup final.
It is the sort of afternoon Bielle-Biarrey has dreamed about since he was five.
Joel took Louis and his brother Samuel to their local club - Seyssins in Grenoble - after his wife Sandrine lost patience with the boys' back garden games.
"They both loved it from the beginning," remembers Joel.
Louis would sleep cuddled up to a rugby ball. The red scrum cap that has become a trademark was initially a present from his parents.
"When his primary school teacher asked the class what they wanted to be, some of the kids said fire fighter, others said a doctor, Louis always said he wanted to be a professional rugby player," says Joel.
"I told him that he wouldn't, that he would be an engineer just like his dad!"
After Bielle-Biarrey clocked those first eye-popping speeds in a Grenoble fitness test though, those chances slimmed considerably.
After hanging up on Joel, the fitness trainer's next call was to Paris.
Bielle-Biarrey's stats were so impressive, they breached a French union threshold. Anyone putting up such numbers needed to be dialled directly into the union's headquarters at Marcoussis.
Bielle-Biarrey duly scorched up a series of trials and was fast-tracked into the France Under-20 squad, still aged just 17. Joel had to sign a waiver to allow him to be involved.
Having turned 18 just six days earlier, he made his debut against Italy in the 2021 Under-20 Six Nations and crossed for a try in the campaign-closing win over Ireland a few weeks later.
Top 14 clubs sniffed a talent.
Bordeaux president Laurent Marti's early and enthusiastic pitch won out. Bielle-Biarrey arrived at the club in 2021, intending to train with the first team, but play for the under-21 side.
However, an injury to full-back Romain Buros opened up a slot for a first senior start in a Champions Cup match against Scarlets in January 2022. Bielle-Biarry, just 18, scored a hat-trick.
Twenty months later, he made his senior France debut. Two months after that he was the starting wing in an epic Rugby World Cup quarter-final against South Africa.
Now, he might just be the best rugby player on the planet.
Like Bielle-Biarry himself, the rise has been quick.
With captain Antoine Dupont out injured, Bielle-Biarrey is now French rugby's pin-up prince - a role he is still acclimatising to.
Rugby Union Weekly: Champions Cup final week at Northampton
How Saints are working to unearth the next Pollock
The Saints Show with Alex Mitchell
"He is doing his best to cope with it - five years ago he was the one asking for autographs," says Joel.
"What is frustrating for him sometimes is that it is not possible to please everyone. Sometimes he steps out the dressing room and there are 300 people waiting.
"He has maybe 10, 20, 30 minutes before he gets on the bus, he might still have to grab something to eat and he just doesn't have time.
"This is what he doesn't like."
It is one of the reasons he chose Bordeaux, the port city in south-west France. He visited Racing 92, but found Paris too bustling and busy.
Noel McNamara, Bordeaux's attack coach, says Bielle-Biarry has brought his own brand of small-town hustle with him though, leaning on the skills he relied on as an under-sized teenage fly-half.
"Everyone starts off with the pace, but I think that really undersells Louis' value," he told Rugby Union Weekly.
"Obviously he is quick, but I have worked with an awful lot of very quick people and it doesn't always make them exceptional rugby players.
"The thing about Louis is his pace, but also his anticipation, his timing and his preparation though the week.
"His workrate, his attitude and his mindset are first class, and that is an impact he has on people around him.
"They expect things to happen when he has the ball. It gives them the confidence to work a little harder to be in support because Louis makes things happen."
Joel isn't sure precisely where the magic comes from.
His own rugby career was brief, playing as a back row at university and then a happy half season at East Kilbride while on an internship in Glasgow in the early 1990s.
Sandrine is from Reunion, a French overseas territory between Madagascar and Mauritius, and, while she isn't especially sporting, Joel suggests her background might have "spiced up the DNA".
On Saturday, at the Principality, it is Saints' turn to try and handle the heat.