Magnus Lund, the Biarritz Beach Boy

He arrives on his newly-acquired Vespa Scooter, hair still wet from an afternoon’s spot of surfing. It is 23 degrees Celsius in late autumn and the deep blue Atlantic Ocean is either crashing into the rocks below, or reaching a serene conclusion on the main town beach just around the bay.

Magnus Lund turned his back on the delights of Stockport and a place in the Sale Sharks back row for a spell at Biarritz on the south-west coast of France. With his stylish shades and t-shirt, long, blonde hair and good looks, he has the appearance of a surfer dude, and with a berth already in the starting fifteen of a team that sports the likes of Damien Traille, Dmitri Yachvili, Nicolas Brusque, Jerome Thion and, alongside him in the back row, Immanol Harinordoquy, the rugby seems to be going pretty well too.

All of which begs the Mrs Mertonesque question: why leave Sale for this?

Lund appreciates the irony. “I keep texting the likes of Dean Schofield and Richard Wigglesworth to tell them I’m off surfing, and to enjoy their afternoon trip to the Trafford Centre,” the 25-year-old admits. “It’s not too shabby here, is it, although I wouldn’t want people to think I’m on some kind of holiday.”
As he says this a blob of sea water drops from his Scandanavian locks and drips on to the road, and a seemingly inexperienced surfer is driven back towards some rocks behind him.

To be fair to Lund, for all his “Beach Boys” persona, it is pretty clear he came to the French Basque region first and foremost for rugby reasons. Indeed, if one of the big boys of European rugby had not come in for him, he may have been lost to playing the game for quite a while.

“I’d reached the decision that I needed to move on from Sale,” Lund explains. “I found that my mind had started to wander, that I was in the comfort zone after six years at the club, and it was all affecting my game. I know it sounds strange, bearing in mind I have so many good friends at the club, I played in a back row alongside Jason White and Sebastian Chabal, and I won a Premiership winners’ medal in 2006, but I’d gone as far as I could with Sale.”

So determined was Lund to leave that he almost turned his back on playing altogether. “I was just stagnating, I was out of favour with England, and I wasn’t happy. I knew I had to do something. For a long while it was going to be taking a break from playing the game. I’d got an offer on the table to take up a very exciting coaching role in America for six months and I was going to do it. It would have been ground-breaking stuff, and it’s something I’m still keen to do at some point in the future.”

Then Biarritz made a call. “My agent contacted me and said he was about to throw a spanner in my works. When he said Biarritz had come in for me all my competitive juices flowed back.”

So why Biarritz – apart from the obvious – when Sale were no longer floating his boat? “Biarritz are one of a very few clubs around the world that could have changed my mind,” Lund says. “For a start it has a fantastic history. They have been one of the top clubs in Europe for many years now. The offer made me realise I still possessed a desire to play at the highest level. I also yearned for a totally different lifestyle to the one I had in Manchester. I felt it would help me develop as a player and as a person.”

Things are afoot at Biarritz, as well. Serge Blanco, for starters, has relinquished his position as President of the whole French league and returned to his old stamping ground to be President of the club once more. Meanwhile another famous Serge – Betsen – has left the sunshine of south-west France for the, er, glamour of Acton and High Wycombe with Wasps and become something of a cult hero. In his place has come a Norwegian with a thick, Mancunian accent.
“Everyone tells me I’ve come as Betsen’s replacement,” he says, shaking his head. “The guy’s an absolute legend over here, both on the field, and also off it. By all accounts he’s a top, top bloke.”

The new Betsen tag was all Lund needed when he first arrived in the south-west of France, with two bags and a key to an apartment on a cliff. “When I signed I thought it would be great but the nearer I got to coming out here the more apprehensive I became,” he recalls. “I remembered that I couldn’t speak much French, and that the whole thing was a huge challenge.

“Luckily my GCSE French has come in handy, as have the three lessons I receive each week, and already I feel comfortable talking in the language, and even better listening to others. More importantly, the squad of players could not have been more friendly and accommodating towards me. I’ve already identified that there’s a good team spirit, and a few of the English-speaking players have made sure I’ve got to know Biarritz well.”

His French league debut – against Bourgoin – is not a game Lund is likely to forget in a hurry. First, there was the general atmosphere. “In the dressing room everyone was shouting in French just before the kick-off,” he recalls. “As I ran on to the pitch the noise, the colour, the singing, the brass bands, it all just hit me.”
Then came his first touch of the ball playing in the French league. “Straight from the kick off the ball flew to me. It’s the kind of catch I’ve taken 99 times out of a 100 but, on this occasion, in the first few seconds of my new career at Biarritz, the ball flew into the bread basket, and straight out again.”

Still, they won and Lund found himself playing away against the might of Toulouse the following week, in a game deemed so big that the fixture was moved to the city’s grander football stadium. “Early in the second half I got the ball five metres out and thought, “here we go, I’m about to go under the sticks at Toulouse’s home stadium,” only for some forward on their side to chop me down just short of the line.”        
Since then he has missed only a handful of games during Biarritz’s up and down season.

“It’s early days and it’s fair to say that I’ve come to Biarritz to play well for my new club and further my rugby career, as opposed to my England career. So far it’s gone well and the coaches here seem to be pleased with me.

“That said, of course I want to get back into the England set-up. I’m not sure I’ve done myself too many favours being over here, but if I continue to hold down a place in the starting XV at a club like Biarritz, and if we prosper well in the French league then I’d hope I’d be noticed. I had a word with John Wells before I left for France and he told me he’d be keeping an eye out for me, but England will look after itself if I do all the other things right.”

Indeed it will, and it will help Lund’s cause more at Biarritz if he embraces the French rugby culture which, evidently, he is, save for one omission. “I still like my English breakfast,” he admits. “But in all other matters I am turning French, from the double expressos in small cups, to shaking hands with every squad member each morning at training. The trick there is to be first to turn up. That way you don’t have to go round finding everyone to shake hands with.”

He keeps a beady eye on Sale’s results of course which, at the time of writing, have been exceedingly good. “I’ll be very surprised if Sale aren’t challenging for silverware this season,” Lund says. “They’ve bought well and have quality all over the pitch.” But he is happy with his lot, too. “The more open style of play suits my game more over here,” he explains. “Keeping the ball alive and going on runs suits me down to the ground.”

And when he’s not playing or training with Biarritz, there’s always the beach. “Drinking a coffee and watching the sun go down over the sea is a nice way to see out the day,” he tells you, as he gazes out across the main beach. “The only sand I saw in England was sprinkled all over the pitch at Edgeley Park,” he adds. “But here it’s what I call a proper beach. It’s a totally different world.”

With that Magnus Lund hops onto his 125 cc and heads off round the cornice and to home which, he happily reports, is five minutes from another beach.
You somehow form the opinion he will not miss Stockport on a wet and cold Friday night in February.