Top 14 – “In the secrets of the preparation”: how the clubs sweated to dream of the Brennus Shield

In the days of dad’s rugby, physical preparation was nothing but a tender imposture. On this subject, we have never forgotten what he once confided to us Serge Blanco, the greatest fullback of all time: “I hated it. So when our pillars Pascal Ondarts and Jean-Pierre Garuet stopped running, I stopped too. They were my landmarks. […] One morning, the doctor of the French XV Jean-Claude Perrin pointed out to me that I would have “could have pushed further”. I answered him: “You mean Paxkal (Ondarts) and Garuche (Garuet) aren’t tough, doc?” But that’s not all, eh!” Ah? “One day, we were also asked to do pull-ups. With Jean-Luc Joinel and Jean-Pierre Garuet, we were unable to do a single one and the physical trainer went to Jacques Fouroux’s room (then coach) to tell him that he couldn’t go to the World Cup with people like us!” Devil. “Fouroux was furiousBlanco laughs now. He said to the guy: “You’re going to push harder than Garuche in the melee, you? You’re going to run faster than Serge? No? So, don’t bother me anymore with your physical tests and your pull-ups…” So I was in the World Cup…”

Forty years have passed since the events that the former president of the National Rugby League recounts not without humor. And as the 2024-2025 season begins, the guys from the Top 14 and Pro D2 have this summer done everything that the great Serge hated, before flooding social networks with their Herculean labors, even calculating their peaks of form according to the respective objectives: the start of the Champions Cup for Stade Toulousain and La Rochelle; the first block of the championship for the promoted Vannes team, the first Top 14 team to have resumed training at the beginning of July. “It is a tradition to have big pre-seasons here, Martin Michel, the general director of the Breton club, recently explained. We want to exist right away. And we will have to succeed in everything if we want to have a chance of staying up: succeed in our recruitment, our pre-season and the first matches. We don’t want to be in the hole after the first block of nine matches…”

Antoine Dupont only resumed in September

Depending on whether you are a “premium” international, a developing Frenchman, an ordinary soldier from the Top 14 or a gold medallist from the last Olympic Games, the recovery has obviously not happened at the same time. Antoine Dupont, the “phoenix of the hosts of this forest”, will not play again until the end of September, for example, the recent Olympic champion having had a busy last season to say the least.

The Tricolores selected for the tour in Argentina, for their part, returned to their training centers around August 15, a month later than their colleagues and after having served their four weeks of regulatory leave. The “premiums” of the national coach Fabien Galthié, twenty in number, took advantage of not having been invited on tour to regenerate. “This is the first time in a long time that I’m not going on tour.Racing 92 second row Romain Taofifenua told us. And to be honest, I was able to really switch off this summer. It was a real off-season and I feel much fresher than in previous years.”

But what exactly are the off-seasons? To put an end to some preconceived ideas, top-level rugby players don’t spend most of their time lifting weights. Here, the goal of weight training sessions is more about maintaining their bodies than increasing their strength: on average, players do four sessions a week in the gym and generally lift 2.5 tons of weights per session. As for cardio, the coach and physical trainer will also set up energy-dominated days, focused on explosive efforts or which exploit the speed qualities of each player. All of this is naturally adapted to the different rugby morphologies, as a pillar does not produce the same efforts as a winger, a flanker or a scrum-half. This one? He is also considered the marathon runner of professional rugby: while he is not often subjected to big speed peaks, he does have to run a lot. In a match, he is the player whose gap between walking and running is the greatest.

The jumbo jet puzzle

But season after season, the headache of the Top 14 physical trainers is undoubtedly embodied by the regular refining of the biggest tonnages of the championship: we will cite in bulk Romain Taofifenua, Uini Atonio, Emmanuel Meafou, Paul Alo-Emile, George-Henri Colombe, Ben Tameifuna, Josua Tuisova or even Posolo Tuilagi. On this subject, the former physical trainer of the XV of France and current master of torture of the Lou, Julien Deloire, recently confided: “During training weeks, these players cannot run as much as others. Too much running can trigger knee problems, joint problems or tendinopathies. We must therefore find alternatives for them such as rowing, cycling, watt-bike or any type of physical work carried.” He continues: “Fat mass is useless weight. A guy who says he feels better with five kilos more fat, I have a hard time hearing him in a high-level sport that is becoming more and more demanding. Maybe those five kilos will be useful to a prop in a scrum. But behind, he will drag them on his back throughout the match.”

In short, the physical preparation inherent to the summer break is neither an exact science, nor a guarantee of winning a title at the end of the season. But without it, professional rugby players would have, in the Top 14 or Pro D2, the life expectancy of a French tennis player at Roland-Garros…