La Rochelle’s number eight Grégory Alldritt looking to slam familiar foes

Grégory Alldritt bears a resemblance to a Hollywood star, his clipped facial hair and complexion adding to his image as a marauding, plundering, swashbuckler on a rugby pitch.

It is a description that fits snugly when it comes to defining the 25-year-old number eight’s playing style, one of perpetual momentum laced with a game-reading appreciation that ensures maximum impact. Alldritt is an intelligent rugby player, whose athleticism, speed, and work-rate mark him out as a formidable opponent.

There are flashes of Imanol Harinordoquy, once of the French backrow, in the way Alldritt operates from lineout to link play. He is happy to embrace the hefty collisions of the gain-line, diligent in his defensive duties but it is his support lines and contribution in the wider channels that is the most eye-catching.

When La Rochelle switch from the ballast brothers, the outsize carriers in the pack, to the three-quarter line, Alldritt is generally lurking with intent looking to maintain tempo in the attack.

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Today at the Stade Velodrome in Marseilles, Leinster will be keen to curtail his impact because to do so would go a long way towards winning the Champions Cup final and adding that coveted fifth star to the jersey.

Leinster are well versed with Alldritt’s qualities; seven of today’s starting pack fulfilled similar roles for Ireland in the Six Nations game against France at the Stade de France earlier in the season. The French won 30-24 and Alldritt won the man-of-the-match accolade on foot of a brilliant display. He is a regular winner of those trinkets and has twice managed to do it against Ireland.

Alldritt was shortlisted for the Six Nations player of the tournament, for the second time in three years (2020, 2022), beaten on both occasions by his childhood friend and teammate, French captain Antoine Dupont. He fulfils a similar position in the Champions Cup, where he is likely to win the player of the tournament if La Rochelle prevail in the final.

These are representations of his enduring excellence and high-calibre performances since making his debut for France in the opening match of the 2019 Six Nations Championship. He has won 24 caps since, scoring four tries. Considering the quality of backrow forwards available to Fabien Galthié, it is quite the endorsement of Alldritt’s talent.

In a parallel universe he could have been wearing the green jersey of Ireland and perhaps even the blue of Leinster today. He would also have qualified to play for Italy or Kenya.

Alldritt is not a common Irish surname but in the census of 1901 there were 19 families bearing that name and 10 years later that had increased to 26, the majority to be found in Ireland’s capital city. The La Rochelle number eight’s great grandfather and grandfather both hailed from Dublin.

He confirmed some of his Irish roots in a potted family history. “My grandfather was born in Dublin, on my father’s side. He went to Scotland when he was two years old and met my Danish grandmother over there. He [grandfather] was in the army and toured the [British] Commonwealth a bit so my father [Terence] was born in Kenya.”

Alldritt’s father Terence was sent to boarding school, initially in South Africa but subsequently, as a 12-year-old, to Stirling in Scotland where he also attended university. The La Rochelle player takes up the story once again. “He met my mother [Kristen], while on a visit to Rome. She was born in France but her parents, my grandparents, were Italian.”

The relationship blossomed and when Terence and Kristen decided to get married, it was his father that ultimately decided what rugby colour rugby jersey he would eventually wear. Alldritt explained: “My mum said, ‘okay let’s go to Scotland,’ and my dad said, ‘no way, if we have a choice between Scotland and the southwest of France we are going to live in the southwest of France.’”

They settled in Condom-en-Armagnac in Gers, an area west of Toulouse, and had three sons, Gregory, the youngest, Scott, who lives in Edinburgh and plays with Stewart’s Melville FP, and Tom. “When you are in the southwest of France with a father who plays rugby, you automatically go to rugby when you start sport when you are young,” Alldritt recalled.

“I started rugby and met some incredible players and friends like Antoine Dupont, Anthony Jelonch, Pierre Bourgarit,” a reference to his current teammates in the national team and in hooker Bourgarit, a player who will also be in the colours of La Rochelle this evening in Marseilles.

Alldritt and his friends spent time at the Auscitaine rugby school and naturally gravitated towards the local club Auch Gers. “The Gers is really a territory or rugby. When you start rugby in the Gers, they don’t teach you how to do a pass or kick a ball, they teach you how to respect the jersey, respect the values of rugby and this is most important for me.

“I started rugby at Auch with Jelonch and Dupont. We are living a dream. To be with the French team is a dream and to live the dream with my best friends there are no words to put on that.” That camaraderie sits easily alongside his respect and affection for those clubs that have helped to shape him as a rugby player.

When the French team decided to weave the names of the 1800 clubs in the country into the numbers on the national team jerseys, it was a decision that resonated with Alldritt. “It was supposed to be for one game [but we as players] asked to keep it on the jersey for all the other games because there are a lot of players who came from small clubs.

“For example, I played for Auch Gers before going to Top 14. I know how important the little clubs are.” Alldritt was playing Federale 1, the French third Division, as a teenager in 2017 while commuting to study engineering in Toulouse; he graduated from La Rochelle university. He helped Auch Gers reach the final of Federale 1 before leaving for the Top 14.

“I started at Auch, played under-17, under-18, on to the B team, then to the first team and after to La Rochelle. I did six months with the [La Rochelle] academy and then [the head coach at that time] Patrice Collazo allowed me to play my first [senior] game. After that season Patrice left and I started back with the academy.”

“Everything has been so, so quick for me. I would never have thought to be in the French team for one minute [back then]. Everything came so quickly but I know where I came from, my friends are on the phone every day and they keep my feet on the ground.”

He joined La Rochelle in the summer of 2018 and that accelerated progress continued apace. There were deficiencies in his game, initially lacking the conditioning to have the same impact through 80 minutes. His first forwards coach at La Rochelle, Gregory Patat, said: “He had trouble finishing his matches and dropped off the pace after 60 minutes. Gradually he acquired the fitness he needed.”

It is difficult to reconcile that with the current iteration of a player who is unrelenting in the way he plays the game. The numbers do not lie. In the Champions Cup he’s carried more (113) than any other play across seven matches, second in the metres (731) which is remarkable for a non-back three player, a group that afforded so many free and easy yards in running backs kicks.

Alldritt is in second place, one behind Ulster’s Michael Lowry, in defenders’ beaten (28) and in the same position when it comes to most offloads (15) behind Toulouse fullback Thomas Ramos. He averages 10 tackles a game – he has missed only three in seven matches – and is joint second (eight) when it comes to turnovers.

To put that into rugby vernacular, he carries aggressively – he scored a try in the semi-final off the back of a scrum – both in close and out wide beating defenders with power and footwork, gets the ball away in the tackle and, if opponents leave a chink of daylight in the tackle and breakdown area he is likely to emerge with the ball. He is an exceptional rugby player.

Ordinarily Alldritt, the grandson of a Dubliner, could expect the casual support of Irish fans. But not today, certainly among Leinster supporters who will instead hope that for once he understands what it is like to be on the losing side.