Jean-Baptiste Elissalde

Jean-Baptiste Élissalde

JB Elissalde (Stade Toulousain), August 2008
Nickname	le Petit rat (the small rat)
Date of birth	(1977-11-23) 23 November 1977 (age 39)
Place of birth	La Rochelle
Height	1.72 m (5 ft 8 in)
Weight	73 kg (11 st 7 lb)
Notable relative(s)	Laurent Bidart (maternal grandfather, international) *Arnaud Élissalde (paternal grandfather, player and coach) *Jean-Pierre Élissalde (father, international player & coach)
Rugby union career
Position(s) Scrum half, Fly-half Senior career Years Team Apps (Points) 1997–2002 2002–2010 1998–2010 2010 2011–2012 Stade Rochelais Stade Toulousain French Barbarians Barbarians Stade Toulousain ? 190 3 2 1 ((?) (1776) (?) (9) (0)) Correct as of 21 May 2012 National team(s) Years Team Apps (Points) 1997 2002–2003 2000–2008 Fra. U21 France A France (?) (3) 35 ((?) (?) (214)) Correct as of 21 May 2012 Teams coached Years Team 2010– Stade Toulousain (backs) Correct as of 21 May 2012

Jean-Baptiste Élissalde (born 23 November 1977) is a former French rugby union player, playing either as a scrum-half or as a fly-half, and current backs coach of the Stade Toulousain.

Born 23 November 1977 in La Rochelle, France, Élissalde is a third generation French international. His maternal grandfather Laurent Bidart and his father Jean-Pierre Élissalde both represented France at international level. Élissalde began playing rugby with La Rochelle, where his father was a coach. He made his first appearance with the professional team in the 1997–8 season. Élissalde then gained caps with the France U21 team.

He played for La Rochelle until 2002 when La Rochelle dropped from the top tier championship and decided to go to Toulouse, where he initially had a hard time breaking into the senior squad, competing against the likes of Frédéric Michalak and Yann Delaigue. He then became the first choice scrum-half at Toulouse and was competing with Biarritz Olympique's Dimitri Yachvili for the No. 9 shirt in the French national team. Élissalde was a member of the Toulouse teams that won the Heineken Cup three times in 2003, 2005 and 2010, and the Top 14 winning team of 2008.

He made his international debut against Scotland in the 2000 Six Nations as a replacement for fly-half Gérald Merceron and went on to score his first international points later that year in a test against Romania with a try eight minutes after coming in, again for Merceron. Dropping to the France A side thus making no subsequent full international appearance until the 2003 Six Nations, he was unable to force his way into the 2003 French World Cup squad.