The great rugby family, you know the picture. The rugby family is what we are about to discover with Rozenn Ngassa, a kind of oval-ball cavalcade that is laughing its way through Rennes.
At 50, Rozenn has the boots strapped to her feet, and so do her children and her husband. Professionally? A nursery school teacher in a small country village, Saint-Rémy-du-Plain, population 800.
A former fifteen-a-side player, an R5 player, a board member of Stade Rennais in Elite 2 and stadium announcer at home matches.
“We went down last year after a good twenty years spent in Elite 1.”
A set of siblings under the sign of the France team
The mother of players, sons and a daughter, Rozenn follows their journeys with pride:
“I have three sons and a daughter. And everybody plays rugby. One of them is at Vannes, at the Académie Pôle Espoir, currently on a camp in Fréjus with the 56 best under-18 players, and he wore the France under-18 jersey this summer on the tour of South Africa. My daughter also went through the Académie Pôle Espoir at the Joliot-Curie school in Rennes. And then she made two team sheets at under-20 level against England, and for two years she was also part of the France Sevens reserve academy.”
Her husband is enormously into rugby too:
“Yes, it is through rugby that we met, when we were doing the rugby coaching qualification a quarter of a century ago now! It is through rugby that we got to know each other.”
That union produced Maélig Ngassa-Manac’h, “because we were keen for the children to carry both our names, so there is a slightly mixed side to it, a blending of genres (smiles)”. Maélig, who is 22, Timothé, who is 20, Malo, who is 19, and Gaétan, who is 17.
From dance floors to the founding of Stade Rennais
How do you come to rugby in Brittany?
“I came to rugby thanks to university. I did a lot of classical dance, and at one point my build meant I no longer necessarily matched the standards, so I stopped dancing. School went by, we came back to Brittany, since at the time I was in Lorraine near Metz.”
At university, women’s rugby was in its infancy. With the REC (Rennes Etudiants Club) not exactly supporting the section, Rozenn took matters into her own hands:
“I was there in 1999 with Lionel Brouder, Philippe Morant and Yann Moison, when we founded Stade Rennais Rugby.”
Today she remains a central figure in Breton rugby. Her husband Patrice is not far behind: a former REC player, he has been the Stade Rennais doctor for 25 years, the REC doctor for 8 years, and the RC Vannes doctor since January 2026! In the Ngassa household, they talk rugby, they watch rugby, they live rugby. Even Malo, the family’s “football man”, ended up giving in:
“Malo played football for a long time, and then 4 years ago he came to rugby… he cracked! (smiles), and he is an excellent goal-kicker, as it happens.”
Campaigning for the future of the Rennes Elite side
A campaigner, a player, the wife of, the mother of, Rozenn hopes and campaigns for her club:
“I hope to see Maélig’s team go back up to Elite 1, to create a dynamic so that the girls stay with us, when in fact we are a club that does not have the same means as a good many of the other clubs backed by Top 14 sides. Financially we cannot compete, so we have to manage to create a group dynamic, quality training sessions, a club life that means the girls still prefer to stay in Rennes.”
In the medium term, her objective is clear: to help the club and to remain her children’s number one fan. That means plenty of kilometres with the Breton flag, from La Rochelle to Grenoble, by way of Lille, to back the Rennes colours.
The last word: a sport for everyone
“Rugby is a sport that can frighten some parents, but in fact it is also a sport that can create very strong bonds, because you are in a collective, you train outdoors, you can let off steam, and there is something for every physique, both the little number nine, quick and clever, and the strong girl who would have been picked last for your team back in primary school. There really is something for every taste, and it creates very strong bonds. My best friends come from rugby, it has been 25 years and there are still weekends when we all get together, the old girls. There really are values in this sport.”
At Stade Rennais, it is volunteers who keep the club alive and who enjoy getting together. Enthusiasts who need to be encouraged to keep going. Again and again. In the name of the great rugby family.
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