Watch: Guirado slides into retirement with his Top 14 celebration
Ex-France hooker Guilhem Guirado enjoyed a rousing send-off after playing the final match of his stellar professional career, helping Montpellier to win its first-ever Top 14 title on Friday night. Naturally enough, the French team’s post-game celebrations were raucous, everything from multiple champagne-popping moments to having a bath with the Bouclier de Brennus trophy and so on.
However, one 16-second video tweeted by the official Top 14 Twitter stood out. Titled ‘When Guilhem Guirado slid serenely towards retirement’, it showed the 36-year-old taking a run from one end of the Montpellier dressing room. He then slid headfirst into the Bouclier which was being held by two players at the other end of the room and let out a guttural roar.
It was a weird celebration from Guirado in the sense that his playing career had ended earlier than anticipated on the night as he failed a head injury assessment following a 26th-minute collision with Castres captain Mathieu Babillot.
Guirado was capped on 74 occasions for France between 2008 and 2019. He spent nine years at Perpignan before switching to Toulon for five years and then signed for Montpellier for the 2019/20 season that followed his retirement from Test level rugby with France.
He was a Top 14 title winner in 2009 with Perpignan and waited 13 years to win the trophy again, this time with Montpellier who demolished Castres with a quick-fire three-try start at the Stade de France.
Il a un protocole commotion qui l'empêche de finir le match et le pelo va tt droit tête en avant sur le BOUCLIER ?
— MaxF (@mfnbe) June 25, 2022
Montpellier boss Philippe Saint-Andre was thrilled that Guirado had a winning farewell. “Very happy, yes. I’m also happy for Mohed Altrad. He was criticised a lot but invested a lot of his time and his money in this adventure. He had the courage to call me two years ago to get me back in the game.
“And then, I’m obviously happy for these guys who come from different backgrounds and who form a great entity with us: there are those who are at the end of their career, like Guilhem Guirado or Fulgence Ouedraogo, those coming from Pro D2 like Alexandre Becognee or those who needed to be revived like Bastien Chalureau or Florian Verhaeghe.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Two super games and great that the first and second teams in the prem will play in the final. I must say though that reading Stuart Barnes article in the Sunday Times on the Bath /Sale game one questioned if he was watching the same game . Ford apparently outplayed Fin Russell. Well Stuart. Read utterly everyone elses opinion and i think you will be somewhat red faced . Bring on the final.
1 Go to commentsMain surprise for me is Mia Venner, a pretty flakey winger, There must be 4 or 5 better wingers than her including Sing, nominally a fullback, who gets no contract.
1 Go to commentsMunster are going to be a tough nut to crack. So far it seems that they soak up the pressure and by patience win in the end.
4 Go to commentsTwo super players Ford and Russell showed some wonderful skills.
1 Go to commentsA cracker of a game. JC Pretorius’s and little van den berg have huge work rates.
2 Go to commentsDannie Gerber - that name brings back memories. He was the maestro of the mid field.
4 Go to commentsDupont may not even be the GOAT in France and has a ways to go to surpass the great #Blanco
35 Go to commentsI’m sure Worcester fans will be as surprised as me to read that Fin Smith came through the Northampton academy.
1 Go to commentsBlitzboks have forgotten how to tackle.
1 Go to commentsWhat sort of ridiculous format this year where the title was won recently and over a whole season only to have winner takes all here? Not just the Ferns (look hey nothing between them and Aus who deserved this win) but Argentina who have been the best team all year then France with that freak for a couple of tournaments wins the overall title? Madness Forget the Olympics - unrelated and of course that is a one off tournament
1 Go to commentsThat is one helluva comeback!!! Hats off to the sheer bloody minded determination that must have taken. Hope he goes fantastically well at the T20 wc.
1 Go to commentsRayasi is now 7 or 8 years into his pro career, albeit one that started when he was young. At 27, as an outside back in NZ, he is probably closer to heading overseas than he is to the ABs. To get on the selectors radar he needs to have a great NPC, then another great SR campaign in 2025. Ben Lam was never really able to do that, he was a feast or famine type player. Three great games, then goes missing for the next 3.
11 Go to commentsDupont sees opportunities where there wasn’t one until he makes it so. Utter class.
3 Go to commentsThese are the guys that do the cohesion predictions? That will be a very interesting review and they have likely already told the Crusaders of their expections for them given such a young and inexperienced squad without all their injured and departed players. I wonder if any of that will get leaked out, perhaps only if the cohesion metric predicted such a season? Actually even that would like badly upon the backoffice, I suspect it likely we will never know what Gain Line Analytics made of this season now! Unless the PUs put its publication to vote?
12 Go to commentsCurrently across the super franchises the forwards choices for Robertson is in the luxury of the competitions depth for selection . However same can’t be said regarding selection of the backs, especially the inside backs. I believe that’s where his dilemma will be. If he can’t get mouanga for the start then he should forget him and move on.
30 Go to commentsIf they had another round up their sleeve then no doubt the sadas wouldv been top8. I say leave things alone and get into the next season I rekon the turn around will carry on.
12 Go to commentsSimilar to Arran Smith in his style of application.
5 Go to commentsSave your money. Just learn from the bad stuff and play better next year. Lost loads of key players and had half the team out broken for most of the season.
12 Go to commentsJosh Ioane has been great for opposition teams all season. The sooner the Chiefs unload him to MP the better.
11 Go to commentsMunster have very good back row stocks nowadays, lots of guys with very high potential. Okeke is unlucky not to get a contract. If he came along 10 years ago, he almost certainly would have. Could be very good for Coventry.
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