Bordeaux Begles' 38-26 Investec Champions Cup semi-final win over Bath sent them through to face Leinster in Bilbao, but for Ben Youngs and Dan Cole on For The Love Of Rugby, the story of the day was the man who pulls every Bordeaux string.
"Maxim Lucu could actually be the king of Bordeaux," Cole said. "You think of Penaud, you think of LBB, you think of Jalibert and all those guys, but I'm telling you now, that team does not function without Maxim Lucu. He is that good."
The numbers were unanswerable. Lucu finished with 18 points off 100% goal-kicking accuracy, scored a try, racked up two assists, made 11 tackles and 43 passes, and added a jackal turnover for good measure. Youngs marvelled at the temperament that allowed Lucu to combine that workload with French flair. "Their ability to make clear decisions, be so accurate in terms of what they bring, but then also bring that bit of edge — for me they're nine and 10 where they're not the biggest guys, but they're chopping, they're getting over the ball, they're mucking in for their team," he said of Lucu and Charlie Bear-back at half-back.
The duo did not understate the importance of his foil at fly-half. Cole called Bordeaux's pairing "the halfback pairing of the entire competition so far" and pointed to the looming final. "Lucu especially versus Gibson Park — wow, that's what you want. You want two of the best in the world going at it and that's going to be a cracker."
Bath were not far away. Ben Spencer's tactical kicking and crossfield ball for Will Muir's spectacular second-try finish drew specific praise. "I thought tactically, Bath were on point. You could really see that game plan — kick low, phase count, you know, put it in behind them, try and sort of move them around," Cole said. He went as far as to say "losing Ben Spencer would have a larger, more damaging effect than you would do if you lost Finn Russell" between now and the Premiership run-in.
But Bordeaux, in the end, simply had more weapons. Cole kept returning to a single carry from Ben Tameifuna. "He does a tap play like most teams do five out. He takes about three or four to bring him down. He gets hit. He still lands like a meter further forward from where he got hit on the gain line. Two phases later, the big man's back on his feet with a little latch. Crashes over. That is three tries — Leicester, Toulouse, Bath — three straight tries in the Investec Champions Cup. You can't stop the big guy."
Damian Penaud earned a separate flower from Youngs. The wing's first-try assist and 30-metre break after rocking up in white socks rather than team colours summed up his afternoon. "I love everything about him," Youngs said. "He looks slightly like a space cadet and he looks like someone who just rocks up and plays the game and gets on with it." Cole nominated Penaud for "flare alone on the fact that he's rocking a pair of white socks in a game" and asked him to wear ankle socks for the final.
The pair pushed back hard against the suggestion that Bordeaux's win was tarnished by officiating. "There's been a lot of comments about TMO," Cole said. "I get fed up with the TMO always coming in, always stopping the game. You only have to cast your mind back to Pollock when he got over the ball a few weeks ago — that Bath game, and he got done, and it shouldn't have been a penalty. It was a penalty. It led to Ted Hill eventually scoring and they lose the game." On the disputed Alfie Barbeary collision, both pointed out that the referee was five metres away. "If he thinks it's okay and he's right there, you have to go with the referee sometimes."
Bath's day ended with a long Will Muir injury concern and a lingering sense that, even with a coherent plan, Bordeaux's individual brilliance was the difference. "Bordeaux won that and they just had a bit more of that ruthless edge," Cole said. "Their entries — they come away with points. They try and minimise the entries that you get."
The reward is a Bilbao final against Leinster, and for Youngs and Cole, Lucu's name now belongs in the same conversation as Antoine Dupont and Maxim Luca. "He is so pivotal to Bordeaux and the way they play," Cole said. "He dictates everything."
