Would you fight this man? Photo Flop Eared Mule CCAL
Admit it - the first time you saw Sebastien Chabal you thought something along the lines of how little you’d like to get in a fight with him. It’s perfectly natural. And you also wondered just a little bit how Chabal fighting might look. If you didn’t, take a moment to do so now. Now give him enough a bucket of alcohol and tell him to drink it. Then make the object of his anger Martin Castrogiovanni, a veritable tank of a man. How might that go?
The extraordinary thing is that this is actually alleged to have happened after the French routed the Italians in Rome on the weekend. It marked the end of a disappointing campaign for both sides, and the incident capped it off. The story was reported factually and somewhat drily in the southern hemisphere’s press - more readily available than in the northern hemisphere. Here’s how The Age describes things:
‘Caveman’ in nightclub brawl
France lock Sebastien Chabal and Italy prop Martin Castrogiovanni were involved in a nightclub brawl following their teams’ Six Nations clash, Italian news agency Ansa claimed on Sunday.
Chabal, who scored a try during the 50-8 romp, reportedly left Castro with a bloodied nose after the Leicester Tigers prop believed the French player, known as ‘Caveman’, was eyeing his girlfriend at the Art Cafe nightspot on Saturday night.
The bearded Frenchman, dressed in a dinner jacket, and Castrogiovanni were separated by teammates. French players apologised for the incident.
Some interesting details - all highly speculative, of course - but where’s the colour? Fortunately, the Corriere dello Sport has started to provide an English translation to some of their articles. What they lack in facts and verifiable sources they make up for in flowery descriptions and powerful asides that would scarcely look out place in Virgil’s Aeneid. We’ve checked, and while the article isn’t in fact in dactylic hexameter, it is nonetheless worth bringing to you in all its glory:
The episode was almost normal, since it took place at about three o’clock on a Sunday morning in a Rome night club. One distinctly tipsy man started fooling around a little too much with another man’s girlfriend. The problem was that the alcohol-enhanced weekend chatter-up at the Art Cafè in Piazza di Siena, Villa Borghese, was Sebastien Chabal, the one metre 95, 115 kilogram mascot of the French XV, also known as The Ogre or The Caveman.
Sebastien Chabal - definitely enhanced by alcohol. “Alcohol-enhanced weekend chatter-up” is some powerful description, and the scene is set up by a discovery of the extraordinary lurking within the seemingly ordinary.
Another, perhaps even more serious, problem was that the woman’s boyfriend was Italy’s Argentina-born prop, Martín Leandro Castrogiovanni, something of a caveman himself at one metre 88 and 122 kilograms.
A clash of titans? This truly will be an epic. It’s Hercules’ Labours, it’s a modern-day Odyssey.
If that weren’t enough, to beef things up even further,
Great beef pun.
quite literally,
A quick break from epic into punditry - curious, but we like it.
were many other French and Italian rugby internationals, attending a post-match party at the Art Cafè, which was open to the public. There was good reason to fear the worst, given the potentially explosive nature of a fight involving top-level rugby players. They pack more destructive potential than, say, basketball stars but nothing, or almost nothing, actually happened.
Build the suspense… build it… “potentially explosive”, “destructive potential”… now what? “Nothing, or almost nothing, actually happened”. Exciting though, isn’t it? At least these aren’t those accursed basketballers, whose lank without bulk doth limit their destructive potential. They just carry on being tall and popping a ball in a basket, tail between their legs for not being as effective at fighting.
CHABAL GOES OUT AND COMES BACK – Amazing those who know him well, Castrogiovanni refrained from leaping at Chabal’s throat. He kept his cool and invited the Frenchman to desist.
“Sir, I invite you to desist”
“Very well, Sir, I shall go out and come back”
Other players, the French in particular, stepped in to back up the Italian prop and persuaded their teammate to go outside, not least because he was very much the worse for wear. And that appeared to be that. Everyone sighed with relief, especially the Art Café’s owners, who for a moment may have feared that their club would never look the same again.
A good chance to bring in the peripheral figures to the story and paint the tranquil backdrop against which the storm would break. Effective story-telling device (story? We mean factual report, of course).
Instead, The Ogre returned half an hour later and threw a punch at Castrogiovanni, who managed to return the compliment under the worried gaze of his girlfriend, Giulia Candiago.
Perhaps this is one area where they might have padded out the drama with an internal monologue addressing the steady fermentation of Chabal’s rage as he went out, the burning injustices running through his mind, the inability to come to terms with profound philosophical realities which seem to him only just beyond his lunging grasp. The journalist probably had a word limit though, so you can’t have it all.
The other players then stepped in again to nip in the bud what was beginning to look like a devastating evening’s entertainment. When two rugby players shape up for a fight, the only hope is that there will be other players in the vicinity to stop them, since they’re the only ones who can.
What an amazing aside! Find us a truer aphorism on rugby in the English press. Please.
CLUB MANAGER DENIES BRAWL –“There was no brawling inside or outside the club”, said Alberto Altigieri, manager of the Art Cafè club.
Cast strong aspersions on the incredibly vivid picture of events you’ve just described at length - that’s an intriguing journalistic ploy.
His statement refuted the assertion by a local Movimento per l’Italia [Movement for Italy] politician, who had referred to a savage brawl involving members of the Italian and French rugby squads.
Conversely, this is a much more severe assessment of the same incident described at length. Neither version corroborates the Corriere dello Sport’s version of events.
All, none or some of the events narrated above happened. But at least the Corriere dello Sport spin a good yarn.
