The 31-year-old full-back is preparing for today’s Heineken Cup final showdown with Toulon, his first European final.

And Balshaw has used this spotlight to tell the world about the wonders of French rugby, pointing to the passionate fans as inspiration.

He said: “Moving to Biarritz has been a highlight of my career and not just because of the location and the lifestyle, although strolling on the beach in October takes some beating.

“I had played all my career in the Premiership and the Top 14 is markedly different, not so much in terms of style but in its greater unpredictability.

“Biarritz have been inconsistent in the Top 14, a curious mixture of hot and cold. We won at Clermont Auvergne one week, the only team to do so in the league, and lost at Albi, who were on their way to being relegated, the next.

“We were well beaten in Toulouse, but in the return game we recorded the biggest league victory of the campaign over them.

“Not that French rugby is as variable as the British weather. The standard is high, there is no shortage of flair and, even if warnings before I arrived about the violence in the game here were exaggerated, there is an undoubted physical edge.

“The crowds are vociferously partisan and there is a spontaneity about the rugby, which explains some of the inconsistency.”