T'Other Side: Toulouse Olympique

       

Head Coach: Sylvain Houles

 

Sylvain Houles began his tenure as head coach of Toulouse Olympique for the 2013 season so he is now in his 12th season in the post.

Most of his playing career was as a centre or winger although towards the end he moved to half back or loose forward. He started with XIII Catalans (the former name of Catalans Dragons) and then in 2000 entered Super League with the Huddersfield and Sheffield Giants and later London Broncos. Houles also played for Dewsbury Rams and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats before returning to France with Toulouse. He played 14 times for France.

 

Captain: Harrison Hansen

Despite being born in New Zealand he has spent the vast majority of his life in Europe. His father, Shane, played for both Salford and Swinton. As a youngster, Harrison went to high school in Swinton and played for Folly Lane ARL before joining the Wigan Warriors Academy. He made his first team début at Wigan in 2004. After 9 years playing for Wigan he then spent two years at Salford, three years at Leigh and two years at Widnes before joining Toulouse in 2020.

He has played internationally for both New Zealand and Samoa.

 

 

Dual Registration and Loan signings

 

Toulouse have a dual registration agreement with Catalans Dragons and Catalans player, Damel Diakhate has played one game for them.

There have been no loan players for Toulouse in 2024 but Mac Walsh is currently out on loan at Whitehaven.

 

 

The Fev connection

For obvious reasons there are only 8 who have played for both Fev and Toulouse, and only one of those is currently playing for either team.

None of the 2024 Toulouse squad have ever played for Fev.

Now playing with Salford Red Devils, Chris Hankinson started his career with Leigh Centurions in 2014 and went on to play for Barrow, Swinton, Wigan and London Broncos before joining Toulouse in 2022 where he played 25 games, scored 5 tries and kicked 64 goals. In 2023 he came to Fev playing 18 games, scoring 8 tries and kicking 18 goals.

Australian, Mark Kheirallah, was signed by Toulouse from Sydney Roosters in 2012 and he stayed with the French team until he was released in 2022, as a result of a dispute over Covid vaccinations. His official RFL stats have him playing 153 times for Toulouse scoring 115 tries, 721 goals and a drop goal for 1,903 points, but these stats do not include the four years he played for Toulouse in the French  Élite competition before they re-joined the RFL competition. He qualified for France on a residential basis and played 4 times including 3 games in the 2017 World Cup.

An excellent fullback, his appearances for Fev were severely limited by a serious knee injury in July 2022 and he was unable to play again for 11 months. His Fev totals were 24 Matches, 17 tries and 72 goals. At the end of 2023 he retired and re3turned home to Australia. In 2022 he scored a hat trick for Fev against Dewsbury.

Barrow signed Dean Parata in 2018 from Blacktown Workers in the New South Wales Cup competition. In 2019 he signed for Toulouse where he played 27 times and scored 7 tries. He joined Fev for the 2020 season (cut short be Covid) and in his two seasons at Rovers made 25 appearances and scored 13 tries including four in a match against Dewsbury. In 2022 he joined London Broncos and, having been almost exclusively a hooker until then, for London he has often played at loose forward.

His heritage qualified him to play for Italy which he has done 11 times including in the 2022 World Cup.