Ben Cohen pitched up at new club Brive last week, new surroundings for him, a new culture and a new language, but with the French club facing a similar situation to Cohen’s former club Northampton.
Cohen left Northampton under a cloud earlier this season, after experiencing relegation from the Guinness Premiership the season before. He has now joined the club propping up the rest in France’s Top 14, but is convinced the Brivistes can turn things around.
The World Cup-winning winger was introduced to Brive’s rugby public on Sunday during the half-time break of Brive’s one-sided dismissal of Spanish minnows Cetransa in the Challenge Cup.
Rugby league had been mentioned as a possible avenue for Cohen while a deal with Leicester Tigers was blocked due to salary cap restrictions, thus opening the door on a move to south west France.
But the decision to join a club struggling at the foot of their domestic league will inevitably draw parallels with the club that Cohen left in September.
“There were certainly a few clubs interested,” admitted Cohen.
“But when I left Northampton, I said that wanted to find a challenge and this will certainly be a challenge but also a lot of good fun.”
Cohen has played just twenty minutes of top class rugby this season but that isn’t expected to stop Brive Director of Rugby Laurent Seigne from picking the winger for their next league match against Dax on the 22nd December.
That debut could even have come this weekend for the return match against Cetransa if it weren’t for the fact that Cohen isn’t registered with Brive to play Challenge Cup rugby. But there’s no doubting the 29-year-old is itching to start playing again after his enforced break from the game.
“Obviously I’ve got to get the respect of the players and get match fit. I played in the Barbarians last week and didn’t feel too far off the pace,” he added.
“Fitness is always going to be an issue but it’s something that I’ve been working on anyway. You can be the fittest person in the world but match fitness is a totally different thing and you just have to play games.
“I’ve been playing for the same club for the last 14 years so obviously with a new club there’s going to be a bit of variety.
“I still love Northampton and all the people there but this will be a big change, something totally different to what I’ve ever experienced. It’s going to be a different type of rugby to what you’ll find in the Guinness Premiership.”
Cohen will have former Saints and England team mate Steve Thompson for company down in La Corrèze. But he was keen to stress that his arrival at Brive was more down to personal life choices than the comfort of having an old friend at a new club.
“To be honest, Steve wasn’t much of an influence on me coming here. Obviously, it’s good that he’s here but you not going to move to a club because you know a person and like that person.
“I came for different reasons. I came for the challenge. But it does help that he’s here.
“It is a big life change. By coming out here, I get to spend more time with my family and that was one of the factors for coming here. It’s a change and something different.
Like Thompson, England’s World Cup-winnign hooker who played at tighthead prop against Cetransa, Cohen is anxious to declare his interest in regaining his England spot.
It’s been over a year since he won the last of his 57 caps against South Africa and while he has no regrets over making himself unavailable for the World Cup, he’d clearly love to add to his tally of 31 tries.
“I’ll always want to play for England. Every time you go out to play for whatever club you want to play for, you always go out to strive for your country.
“If I was one hundred years old, I’d want to play for England. Hopefully, they’ll come out this way and have a look at me. But I know I’ll have to be playing pretty well to get in the England side.”
Yet it is Brive which will prove to be the winger’s focus over the next few months. An enforced absence from the paddock can often benefit a player’s career and Brive will hope that Northampton’s former favourite will show the kind of form that made him one of England’s great wings over the last seven years. Time will tell.
