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 13th 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: Anthony Marion 

Anthony Marion took over the captaincy of Toulouse this year following on from Harrison Hansen who retired at the end of 2024.

Marion is a versatile player who has often played at hooker, halfback and loose forward.

His entire professional career has been at Toulouse, having made his début in 2016. He is also a French international.

 

 

 

 

The Fev connection 

For obvious reasons there are only 10 who have played for both Fev and Toulouse, and, unusually, one of those has played for both teams already in 2025.

 

Johnathon Ford joined Toulouse from Sydney Roosters in 2011 (when Toulouse were playing in the French Elite competition). He was at Toulouse when they came back into the RFL competition in 2016 and from 2016 until the time he left to join Fev in 2022 he made 112 appearances for Toulouse and scored 29 tries.

At Fev in 2022 and 2023, he played 20 matches and scored 4 tries.

He has also played for Cook Islands including playing for them the 2013 and 2022 World Cups.

In 2015, Fev signed Jy Hitchcox from Wests Tigers, where, at the end of the 2014 season, he had made his NRL début and played 3 further games. Jy was equally at home at fullback or on the wing and in his one season at Fev he played 25 games and scored 11 tries. He was then signed by Castleford Although he was at Cas from 2016 until 2019, he never managed to establish himself as a regular first team player and spent time out on loan at Batley, Halifax and Bradford. He signed for Bradford in 2020.

He signed for Toulouse in 2020 and in his two seasons there (1 cut short by Covid) he made 14 appearances and scored 13 tries.

For the 2022 season he joined Leigh but also played on loan for Rochdale Hornets.