Toulon acquires Kiwi skills

CONTRACT NEWS: Former All Black centre Casey Laulala will join Toulon from Top 14 rivals Racing 92 next season as skills coach on a one-year deal with an option for a second.

Twice-capped Laulala, 37, finished his playing career at Racing, going on to become an assistant coach there.

But he found himself surplus to requirements after the Paris club’s faltering season and will now head south.

Toulon manager Patrice Collazo said Laulala would focus on “skills and every aspect of developing individual technique from the professional set-up to the academy” as well as doing analysis.

Eric Dasalmartini, a member of Toulon’s league-winning team in 1992 and assistant coach of France’s under-20 world champion side last season, was taken on on a two-year contract as line-out coach, replacing Argentina international Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe.

Agence France-Presse