We present you Shaun Edwards, the strong man of the defense of the Blues

You may have heard his name after the XV victory of France against England last Sunday. Shaun Edwards, the new French defense coach, is presented as the main craftsman of the Sunday feat. His "rush defense" disgusted the enemy and allowed his players to hold their line, sometimes miraculously, until the 80th. Should we see in this art of entrenchment the reflection of Edwards' passionate readings on the First World War and the life of the furry in the trenches? Or rather that of his experience as an ancient "treizist" legend?

Gaël Tallec, a former teammate of the Englishman when he was an opener at Wigan, gives a clue. “He knew the defense techniques of XIII before training because rush defense is something that has been around for a while. I think he had to take inspiration from things he knew in rugby league, apply them and modify them to suit him. "

Cool life, but what is rush defense?

Also called a blitz defense, it consists of a rapid and aggressive defensive rise. To put it simply, it is the rugby equivalent of the high pressing of soccer players and a theoretical revolution proposed by Edwards, at the beginning of 2000. His teams, the Wasps and the Wales, drew immense benefits and a slew of titles .

Shouting and Breaking In to a Player

Modest, the tricolor staff recruit did not wait long before putting the immediate effects of his work into perspective. In the Times , he salutes the foundations laid by his predecessor to the post, Fabien Galthié. "I was helped because, at the World Cup, France used a system with Fabien as a defense coach which was similar to what we used with Wales. I arrived and added a few more details. Like his singular way of communicating with the players. Edwards is a man of few words, long tearful speeches, very little for him. "He prefers short but striking messages," notes Romain Ntamack.

From nothingness to a conquering Crunch, how the Blues have metamorphosed https://t.co/9KfWgIR5cw

In other words, the man works by key sentences, mostly distilled in French. For months that he takes French lessons at the rate of one hour a day, the result is convincing: "Two tackles, attack the legs, no easy ball!" "Shaun, he always says 'no easy ruck', laughs Grégory Alldritt. This is his motto, he tells us a hundred times a day (laughs) ".

Taciturn - but a bit joking when you dig well, we are told - the Englishman drags behind him a reputation as a workaholic, feared because a perfectionist. We can quote Shane Williams describing Edwards as a character capable of rotting a guy author of a hat-trick if he had had the misfortune to miss a tackle. Or Tallec, Wigan era. "I rubbed shoulders with him, I was very young, I can tell you that when he called you to order, you weren't leading wide. But in the game of the best memory of Edwards as a whipping father, it was his former Wasps player, Laurence Dallaglio, who won the palm. “He is the only coach who broke into my house and sat waiting for my return to talk about my game from the previous Saturday. We talked for ten minutes, then he got up and left. "

The only coach to break into my house and sat waiting for my arrival home to discuss my performance the previous Saturday for Wasps !!! Had a 10 minute chat and then got up and left! Just an average day !!! Relationship like no other I've ever experienced

We have seen people spinning at Sainte-Anne for less than that but the new defense coach of the XV of France is anything but crazy. Quoted by L'Equipe, Serge Betsen, played under his orders with the Wasps and describes on the contrary a brilliant guy in the human approach: “He has this mentalist side. He maps his players and he will give everyone two three things to focus on to be as efficient as possible. There are a thousand other examples of his singular management methods. Ultimately, there is only one: victory. “What characterizes him, completes Galthié's right-hand man, Raphaël Ibañez, is his competitive spirit. It is made for the weekend game. It obsesses him. "

Steel and red man at Wembley

An obsession that dates from his career as a treiziste in Wigan, a former town of miners where the only fight he has ever lost is that against Margaret Thatcher (not even 18 years old, he was demonstrating in support of workers). His record in rugby XIII is unequivocal: he won eight times in a row (1988-85) the most prestigious of trophies, the Challenge Cup, which earned him the cover of Franck Malley's book "Simply the best" retracing the epic of Wigan.

Because Edwards was not just a player on the team, he was THE player. Arrived at the club in the middle of the golden age, in 1994, Tallec tells. “It was a legend in Wigan, moreover, it is part of the hall of fame. It was someone who had such an image, such an aura ... When I think of him as a player there is something that comes to me, it is his determination. I remember the physical sessions we did with the fitness trainer and after which he did some of his own. "

To say of a guy named “man of steel” of a finale for having played it with a fractured cheekbone and broken orbit that it is hard to harm would be a mild understatement. In this quest for victory all blows are good to take, or to give, like this ugly tie on an Australian player one night of match at Wembley with Great Britain which will cost him a red become cult across the Channel.

Defense theorist, Stakhanovist, a little too combative ... Could France have hired a destruction specialist and notorious nag? Negative, says Gaël Tallec.

“He was someone who ran the game when he was a player. He played half scrum and half opening. But the defense, even if he defended, it was not the biggest of the templates and it was not the one who defended the most, it was not his role, even if he tackled. It may surprise those who knew him to be a player to see his trajectory as a coach. I would have seen more head coach, what. "

He almost became one, precisely in Wigan. It was his first plan for post-Wales. Despite an oral agreement with club leaders, Shaun Edwards finally turned his back on his city. The interested party points to the absence of a written proposal, the English team has it bad, but "people have kept good memories of him in Wigan despite that," persuades himself his former teammate. It was therefore in France, where his father's promising career ended at the age of 24 after a serious injury, that the trench digger set down his business.

Sport

XV of France: High intensity and errors to be corrected ... No relaxation at CNR after the Crunch

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