Dan Biggar: Toulon move was an 'opportunity I had to grab'
- Published
Dan Biggar joined Northampton Saints from Ospreys in 2018
Dan Biggar had just got his two-day-old son off to sleep and was settling down to watch his beloved Manchester United take on Arsenal when his phone rang.
It was his agent who knew he would be disturbing a die-hard football fan - but this was a call he felt the Wales fly-half had to take.
French giants Toulon were interested.
Biggar, while flattered, admits the timing was wrong with the new arrival and being half-way through the season with Northampton Saints.
He put it aside until they called again a few weeks later, by which time he and his family were more open for discussions.
"This opportunity may not have been there in six months time. I think it was one I had to grab," Biggar told Rugby Union Daily.
"To play for a team of Toulon's stature and pedigree, it is a little bit like if a Real Madrid or a Barcelona came calling for you in football."
Biggar had already announced he would be leaving Northampton when his contract expired at the end of the season, but the club granted the 33-year-old's request to leave with immediate effect.
He scored 614 points in 69 games for Saints during his four year stint at Franklin's Gardens.
"Northampton have been absolutely brilliant in terms of the way they conducted themselves through all of this," Biggar said.
"They have been without doubt the best seasons of my career, professionally and personally, I have absolutely loved it there. I can only say good things and thank them for the years I have been there."
Biggar follows in the footsteps of fellow Welsh players Gavin Henson, Leigh Halfpenny and Gethin Jenkins in heading to Toulon, and admits it is an exciting time in his illustrious career.
"I have always wanted to play in different leagues and experience different countries so I am very excited for the family," he said.
"I think my wife is most excited about house shopping!
"I watched Toulon play Montpellier [on Sunday]... and at a 9 o'clock kick-off on a Sunday night, it was like an international.
"You put in how amazing a place Toulon is, the weather, the culture, but then you top it off with the main point of it, the atmosphere, the stadium, the fans are absolutely crazy for it.
"I cannot wait to do that walk for the first time."
Dan Biggar spent 10 years of his career in Swansea with the Ospreys
Biggar said there was no offer on the table to return to Wales, and even if there had been, he did not want to give up the "big match occasion" he experienced in the Gallagher Premiership.
"It feels like in the Premiership that every single game you play on a Saturday afternoon is the only show in town.
"In the URC [United Rugby Championship] it is difficult when you are playing a team from South Africa or Italy at 7.35 on a Friday night, it is very difficult to get that real big match occasion."
Biggar and his wife also talked about a move to Japan, where the likes of Wales internationals Cory Hill, Jake Ball and Hadleigh Parkes play their rugby.
"I absolutely loved it when we were over there for the World Cup, but my wife made a good point. She said 'are you ready to give up that competitiveness, the occasion every week?' That swayed it and then this offer came in."
Biggar has completed his medical at Toulon and will join up with his new side after the autumn internationals, in which he will play no part after sustaining a knee injury with Northampton.
He said he will initially travel to the south of France alone, while his wife and little boy finish the winter school term, and he plans to use the time to learn the language.
"I have got an intensive course booked," he said.
"It may be a good thing that no one understands me, but in the position I play it is imperative that you are able to communicate and express what you want from the team and the players.
"I am going to try and give absolutely everything to learning the language because I think it is the right thing to do when you go to a different country, but also it is going to make life a lot easier for me.
"Fingers crossed I will be able to speak a bit of French by the end of the year."