My former club Castres take centre stage on Saturday when they play a European Cup semi-final against Munster. It will be a massive match for them, a last chance to salvage something from their season as they are fighting relegation in the French championship.
I have fond memories of my three years there. It's a small place which lives for rugby; the only parallel for the strength of local feeling for the game which I could find in England would be Gloucester.
The fans are absolutely crazy - most of the players live outside town to avoid the pressure of being asked about rugby all the time - the stadium is as intense as Kingsholm, and Castres are amazingly strong at home so the place has something of Welford Road's impregnability about it too.
Sometimes, though, the passion has gone too far. My first match there was against Stade Français, and it was the only one we lost at home in those three years. There was a fight among the players, and the Castres lads pushed the Stade boys up against the crowd barriers. One fan had a plastic bottle of water which he slammed on to Christophe Dominici's face and broke his orbital bone.
They may spring some surprises at the weekend. Raphael Ibanez, the French team's hooker, is out of form and may stay on the bench, and I don't think Gregor Townsend's place is that secure either, even though he's the kind of guy who can turn a game. They have other players like that, though. The best is Romain Teulet, who's listed as scrum-half but plays full-back or fly-half as well.
I call him Aladdin, because he's tiny and can produce magic from nowhere. He's a great kicker - so Munster will really have to mind their discipline - and he is also fast and elusive in his running from full-back. He's ome from nowhere and surprised everyone recently; well actually he's come from Bergerac, so you can begin thinking up the Cyrano references.
The other key players behind are Norm Berryman, who can kill off a game on his own when he's on song, and the stylish Ugo Mola, but the unsung hero is Eric Artiguste in the centre. He directs the back play and has been at the club for a long time but only ever earned a single French cap. That was against Western Samoa in 1999, and I take the blame for ending his international career: I slung him a pass, he had Inga Tuigamala and George Leaupepe land on him at the same time and was never quite the same again.
Munster will suffer up front, whether or not Peter Clohessy plays. After the trouble between him and Ismaelia Lassissi in the pool game in Ireland there's a fair amount of history between the two packs so there will be some old scores to be settled and it will be physically very intimidating. That's where Munster will have their only chance of getting on top: if they can manage to annoy their opponents, Castres are a team who have a habit of giving away a lot penalties.
I'd put my money on Castres winning on Saturday, but I wouldn't risk a lot on it. The fact that they've got home advantage will be a key factor for them. I was talking to Rob Henderson about it after France v Italy a couple of weeks ago and he asked me why the match wasn't being played in Lille. If it was somewhere like that the Castres supporters wouldn't go, but Béziers is like playing at home for them.
It's another small French rugby town with a great tradition - home of one of the most feared French packs of the 1970s - and the thing I remember about it is the wind in the stadium. The tramontane just blows the ball everywhere when you're kicking.
Rugby isn't the biggest thing there, though: bullfighting is what the locals really go mad about, and the Stade de la Méditerranée will have something of the intensity of the corrida about it. So the question is: who will play the torero and who will end up as the toro?
· You've read the piece, now have your say. Email your comments, be as frank as you like, we can take it, to <A HREF="mailto:sport.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk">sport.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk .
