Nice (AFP)
"We play as we train. We train as we play." The leitmotif of the French team staff is looping through the mouths and heads of the Blues, who spent an intense week in Nice, far from Marcoussis, to prepare for the Six Nations Tournament.
"It was a pretty busy week but we worked pretty well," said third row Grégory Alldritt. The rear Anthony Bouthier also evokes an "intense and tiring" preparation before the first match against England next Sunday at the Stade de France.
The 42 players called by Fabien Galthié spent their first week on the French Riviera to discover, for some, the new methods of coaching. But, above all, "to get closer to training the intensity of a match of international level", a requirement dear to the coach.
Before the World Cup, the arrivals of the former "assistant like no other" and of Thibault Giroud, performance director, had already started the machine for high-intensity physical preparation fully integrated into rugby.
On the program, therefore, timed, timed sequences - even breaks! -, the ball always in action, with this constant concern to establish a culture of work and effort, a grid field, data and much, much sweat. Without forgetting the video analyst, perched so as not to lose a crumb of the day's session.
- Like a real match -
The training sessions "are very timid +, with a lot of rhythm, if you miss something and it's the end of the clock, too bad for you, you can't start again and it will be on the next block," explains thus Toulouse's Julien Marchand.
"We must be able to find technical correctness and solutions when we are tired or under pressure, decrypts Laurent Labit, trainer in charge of the attack. At times, we lose clarity on sequences that are imposed on us, very long and we find ourselves in our camp to continue playing while we back off ... that's what the English will try to do ".
The exploitation of GPS data in a scientific way has also revolutionized the preparation of the Blues.
As cold as indisputable, the figures speak in the ear of the eight strong men of the tricolor staff who "trained to train", first with the neighboring club Massy at the National Rugby Center of Marcoussis, then in Naples with a local team and finally with young people from the Côte d'Azur to Nice before rubbing shoulders with the Blues, the real ones.
Besides coach Fabien Galthié and general manager Raphaël Ibanez, each has his specialty: Laurent Labit (attack), Shaun Edwards (defense), William Servat and Karim Ghezal (conquest and specific tasks), as well as Thibault Giroud (performance director athletic) and Nicolas Buffa (director of the analysis unit).
- "Data is essential" -
"I like it. I like when everything is square, everyone knows what he has to do and, like that, we don't have to think about it," said the hooker of Racing 92 Camille Chat.
"Everything is precise, it's a relief. If we have something to ask about defense, we know who we should go to. If it's for the key, it's someone else. If it "is the attack, it's him. If it's the scrum, it's him ... It's a real comfort and it's good for the future", adds the center of the French stadium Gaël Fickou, most capped player in the group (51 selections).
A technological revolution? Not really, according to Giroud. "The players have been used to data for years, whether in Top 14 or in Pro D2. It is not something that happens in the French team by magic," explains the performance director.
"At the international level, what interests us is that we can compare what we are doing with the opposition, he adds. It allows us to know where we are and to take the right direction. Data is a must in 2020. It’s part of evolution, as the mobile phone has evolved over the years. Players are educated about that. But data is one of many tools We don't just base ourselves on that. "
© 2020 AFP