Arriving at the port of Vannes, a stone’s throw from the town hall, we come across the expected elements of the decor: the pancakes and other crepes on the plates of restaurant customers, the glasses filled with cider and the seagulls strolling between the moored boats. But when you raise your head, giant spotlights betray the presence, a hundred meters further on, of a more astonishing element in this landscape: the Rabine stadium and its 11,865 seats.
Read also | First Breton club in Top 14, Vannes puts Brittany “on the map of French rugby”
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This is where the Vannes Rugby Club (RCV) plays, recently promoted to the Top 14 and the first Breton club to set up its cleats in the elite of French rugby. And if its stadium is hidden in the Vannes city center, the RCV is speaking in a way that is rare for a newcomer. The scorers appreciate the cathedral silence respected before each kick, which contrasts with the powerful Bro gozh ma zadou (“the old country of my fathers”) – the Breton anthem –, sung by the spectators before each match, to the tune of The Old Land of My Fathers Welsh.
Beyond this delicious atmosphere, learning the Top 14 is difficult for the Morbihannais, dead last in the championship after four days despite a first victory, at home, against Lyon, in mid-September. The Blue and White host Racing 92, Saturday October 5 at 2:30 p.m., with always the same “ultimate goal” : “to maintain” in the elite at the end of the 2024-2025 season, explains Jean-Noël Spitzer. The Vannes coach has seen everything about the slow structuring of the club, of which he has been head coach since 2005 after having played there. With the ex-third line, the RCV grew slowly, moving successively from the fourth division (1997 to 2006) to the third (2006 to 2016) then to the Pro D2 (2016 to 2024), and therefore to the Top 14.
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On the edge of the Gulf of Morbihan, here are the Vannes players in the deep end. And facing the same challenge as all those promoted: not to burn your wings in contact with the elite of French rugby. In Oval, trying to compete too quickly can lead to destructuring, then to a free fall, season after season. Despite three Pro D2 semi-finals played in 2019, 2021 and 2023, “we were not ready to go up in previous years”, estimated Martin Michel, the general director of RCV, from the club’s training center, located less than three kilometers from La Rabine.
“We needed this new building to work well, he says. The descent can happen, we know it, but it will allow us to continue to progress. » Inaugurated in December 2022, it includes a 400 m weight room2 and a covered synthetic pitch. It also made it possible to bring together the sports and administrative teams in the same place.
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