Dark clouds race across the sky. Thunder sometimes rumbles. The young Japanese rugby players don’t care. Concentrated, they apply the instructions given by Emile Ntamack, Daniel Andry and Ismaël Hessani. The three coaches from the Stade Toulousain academy led a training course from August 20 to 22 in the verdant Tsumagoi leisure center in the Shizuoka department, Japan.
Invited by the local professional team, the Shizuoka Blue Revs, a partner of Stade Toulousain, they were performing for the first time in the country. The goal: to instill a touch of the famous “hand game, Toulouse game” to 36 young rugby players, but also to develop the image of the French and European champion team, which is not well known in the archipelago.
“It’s hard, but it’s really nice”appreciates, sweating, Luna Yamamoto, the only girl in the group, 12 years old and member of the Shizuoka academy, where she plays rugby sevens, due to the lack of enough players to form a team of fifteen. “The game is really fast. But I want to introduce it to my school.”adds Ayumu Matsuura, aged about ten. Coming from Kanagawa, south of Tokyo, the young boy discovered rugby four years ago thanks to a friend: “I watched a game. I thought it was great.”
At the Tsumagoi center, the hour and a half sessions, morning and afternoon, focus on passing, close support to the player, and ball retention. The Toulouse executives are supported by players from Shizuoka, such as the local star, Yuki Yatomi, a scrum-half who has just retired from the field.
“He told me this team plays fast”
“In Japan, everything is very structured. Everyone applies the program. These young people are still malleable, real sponges. Our goal is to instill in them a little of the Toulouse philosophy, which encourages them to dare and think outside the box.”explains Emile Ntamack. The former Toulouse and French team back line is delighted with their reaction: “Communication is going really well.”
For Stade Toulousain, this training course is also part of a policy to develop its image in an archipelago more focused on New Zealand than on France. Nearly half of the children on the training course did not know the French club. “I came because my father advised me to. He told me that this team plays fast.”explains Sora Yamazaki, who watched a series of YouTube videos to learn the game of Red and Black.
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