Leeds Rhinos have today announced that they have signed French international Eric Anselme, 29, on loan from French Elite Division One side RC Albi.
The Frenchman who can play at either centre or back row arrived in Leeds on Monday and will be available to play for the World Champions in their next match against Bradford Bulls in the
Millennium Magic Weekend. He will return to France for one week to captain Albi in the French Cup Final against Limoux in Carcassonne on May 25th, but will then be available to the Rhinos throughout the rest of the season
Eric has previous Super League experience having played with Halifax Blue Sox during the 1997 season and actually made his debut aged 17 against the Rhinos at Headingley Carnegie Stadium. He has also played in the NRL with Penrith Panthers before returning to France to play for
St Gaudens, where he won the French Championship in 2004. He began his career with Albi in 1991 and returned to the French Elite One club in 2007.
Eric made his first international appearance for France in 2000 and has gone onto win 26 caps for his country. He was part of the French side who played Great Britain in the 2007 Frontline Test and was a try scorer for his side in their 42-14 defeat at Headingley Carnegie Stadium. He made two further try scoring appearances for his country last year in the 46-16 victory over Scotland and the 22-14 defeat against New Zealand, where he was named the Man of the Match for France.
Commenting on signing for the Rhinos Anselme said, “I see this as a real challenge and opportunity in Super League. I am excited about playing for France in the World Cup and the experience at Leeds Rhinos will be very good for me and it will also be an inspiration to other Rugby League
players in France. For my club Albi it is very important to have a friendship with Leeds Rhinos and everyone is very excited about this.”
Commenting on the signing Rhinos Chief Executive Gary Hetherington said,
“Our Coach Brian McClennan has looked very closely at Eric on video and has been greatly
impressed with him. He is a very versatile and experienced player who will add value to our squad particularly at a time when we are struggling with injury. We are also pleased to start an
arrangement with Albi, which could result in the opportunity for some of their youngsters to spend time at Leeds Rhinos.”
Eric will become only the second French born player to play for Leeds, following on from
scrum half Patrick Entat, who joined the Club in 1994 and made 20 appearances and scored
two tries during the 1994-95 season.

 

from rhinos website

That is awesome news... the cats experiment is starting to pay off... UK is seeing how good the french are and giving them a fair shot!

Awesome!

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the best thing i see about it is not the signing of this individual guy but the "relationship" set up between leeds and albi. how good is it for leeds and albi academy players to have the option of a sort of cultural swap!

my other question is, (but u sort of beat me to it dru), does anyone think this would have happened if catalans where not around? or did british clubs sign french players often pre catalans?

There were french players, but no where near as many as now... but with the Cap off on European players now, I suspect we will start to see more players say from Lebanon, Russia and Serbia start to trickle through. Hopefully Serbia will get listed on the Schengen Potentials list which allows them to get I think 1-2 year working visas rather than the usual 3 month at the moment. 

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i agree, even if its onl in NL2 to begin with! lebonon is part of the RLEF but not in the EU. do u kno the situation for the lebanese rgd visa etc?

Yes this is great news for the French game. To be fair I thought he was France's best player against GB at Headingley but all the plaudits went to Maxime Greseque because he scored 2 tries.

 

As you mentioned it is great for the French juniors to have a chance to experience what is the best Rugby Academy system in Britain. Lets hope more come through, you have to say if France can keep their players fit they have a great chance of making the World Cup semi finals!

Jack GB:

i agree, even if its onl in NL2 to begin with! lebonon is part of the RLEF but not in the EU. do u kno the situation for the lebanese rgd visa etc?

I think that because they are not EU they have the 3 month visa issue, but do not fall under the cap as they are RLEF members.

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Great news, hopefully a few more of the french can play for SL clubs. Adel Fellous is playing for Hull also. I'm not saying keep them there because then the Elite wouls suffer just have a few players at a time so they can bring their experience back to Elite.

Starting to lean towards Toulouse over Celtic for a SL 2009 license now, 2 clubs would hopefully do alot for the french game.

I see Fakir has re-signed for the Dragons! So much for him going to Toulouse RU.

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All this increased French activity since Catalans joined the SL, leads me to hope Toulouse (and Celtic) get the new licences. I will be wearing my Dragons jersey when France play Scotland in Canberra later on in the year!

Their players have always been there, but pre-Lewis years the UKRL lloked only to the M62.

The real test of the toulouse liscence will be the test in June.

Celtic, I think will only be successful if they move from Bridgend to Cardiff... Bridgend is just too small, its a nice little town but just not enough people there.

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I knew nothing about Bridgend - if Celtic were successful where would they play? Millenium would be too big, right? I would be very keen to see the detail contained in the bids, but I assume that they are commercial-in-confidence.

Yeah, Bridgend has only about 15,000 people and the stadium holds about 5-6,000 I think. Like I said its a nice place, enjoyed my trip there last year, but if they want to be SL contenders then the move to Cardiff needs to be done.

Millenium is too big, I would hope they could get a deal done with one of the Union clubs, they play in the RL off season so there wont be any clashes in terms of games. Bridgend is only a 20 min train ride from Cardiff so any Bridgened fans could make games no problem. A solution could be that ESL games be Cardiff but CC games in Bridgend, particularly in the earlier rounds.

Well June/July we will know all.

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