Date: 25/4/14
After recently announcing an agreement to help establish a Rugby Academy (mainly focused on Rugby League) in Kenya after signing an agreement with the Kenya Rugby League Federation and a second away test-match in Kenya later this year, the Federazione Italiana Rugby Football League (FIRFL) will continue their plans for “internationalisation” after signing an important agreement with a great rugby union champion.
It is certain that within a few weeks the former French Rugby Union captain and flanker Serge Betsen will hold a education course organised by the FIRFL (lasting several says) that will help illustrate the familiarities and congruence’s between the two disciplines of rugby league and rugby union, which help increase the education of coaches and players in Italy, although all details will be defined and formalized soon.
The FIRFL, therefore continues to move toward their belief that the two codes are not at odds with each other and are complementary and with the particular belief the characteristics and participating in rugby league will help a rugby player to complement their technical skills. In addition, thanks to the numerous international activities, the FIRFL is putting together an idea that is currently in the pipeline that could give an “international outlet” to those rugby union players who are unable to enter the National Rugby Union scene. The major activity with Betsen, should take before the start of the r-Evolution League (in June), which will be just the first of a series of meetings organised and staged by the FIRFL, involving major representatives of rugby union.
Who is BETSEN – Serge Betsen Tchoua (born in Kumba, Cameroon, March 25, 1974) is a French former Rugby Union player, a flanker with Biarritz and the French national team. His career was held almost entirely in France given the sixteen seasons played with Biarritz. In 2007-08 he made the move to London Wasps where he played his last professional seasons before retiring in March 2012. The flanker has a powerful physique (96 kg), with the Basque club he won three French titles and also boasts a final, lost, in the 2005-06 Heineken Cup. He made his debut in the National March 22, 1997 to Grenoble in the Fira Cup final including the first French defeat against the Italy (32-40). With the French jersey he won three six Nations also competing in the Rugby (Union) World Cup 2003 in Australia and that of 2007 in France. Was captain for the first time in the August 2007 in a test-match and played with the national team 63 times.
