Rugby 7s – Jérôme Daret warns France 7: “After the great summits, you have to be careful about the descent”

You were voted best coach of the year at the World Rugby Awards. How did you receive this award?

With great surprise and immense emotion. A lot of honor too because receiving a title like this is incredible. In addition, It’s not only rewarding for me. This trophy highlights all the work done by the staff, the players and the entire ecosystem. Collaboration with clubs and work with the French Rugby Federation are also highlighted… I am extremely proud because we had the ambition to position rugby sevens in the landscape of French rugby, international rugby and in Olympic sport. And I think we didn’t do too badly!

Are you aware of having beaten the big names in rugby union by winning this award?

I was awarded a trophy based on established criteria. We win the Olympicswhich is the most important competition in the world, universally and globally. We have also been winning stages of the Series with in-depth work and fourteen medals to our name in recent years. I am proud of rugby sevens, which is an incredible sport. A real extreme sport. It doesn’t seem surprising to me that every four years, one of the coaches of the 7 is promoted on this type of events and on the Olympic version of rugby.

You are also the first rugby sevens coach to be crowned in this category…

It’s an honor. I’m delighted with it because it highlights this version of rugby, because it’s the same rugby. I am delighted for the world of rugby sevens, which is an atypical world, where we share everything with our competitors and where our enemies become our allies. A place where everything is intertwined and in which we must be able to make decisions constantly.

Do you feel like you took advantage of the light of the Paris 2024 Olympics to make people realize what rugby sevens is?

I often said that rugby sevens was the Formula 1 of rugby. Now, I prefer to say that it’s a roller coaster. This creates a permanent emotional elevator between dramaturgy and crazy pleasure. It’s a cocktail that creates incredible experiences between players, coaches and the public. The population realized this during the Olympics. 130,000 spectators in six days in the Stade de France, incredible audiences… People discovered rugby sevens but also rugby in general.

For you, Monaco was first a land of misfortune, with this defeat in the final of the Olympic Qualification Tournament in 2021. Now, it is the place where all your personal work has been rewarded. Does this mean something?

Things come to a close one after the other and that’s a way of saying that we’ve come full circle. Especially since I am now moving into another role. Coming back to Monaco with this consecration is unexpected and it’s a sort of nod to the project which is ending for me. I announced a year ago that I was going to stop after Paris 2024 and receiving this achievement upon release is simply magical. The circle is closed.

Why did you decide to leave your position?

It’s seven years of hard work, more than 220 days off base, another 70 days worked… I can guarantee you that it’s a lot of sacrifices, a lot of energy deployed. Because we still experienced a huge failure when we did not qualify for Tokyo. And behind that, it was a crazy investment to go and get the Grail like we did. It’s work on the performance of the staff, on emotional intelligence, on mental performance, on the ecosystem… An investment of every second, every minute. It had an impact on family life so it was the time for me to hand over the reins. There must be people who bring a lot of energy and an ambition to make a project and a discourse grow. This is the role of the new staff and it is important that it happens like this. It’s like when you go looking for mushrooms in the forest! You will see mushrooms and someone passing behind you will see more. Having another perspective allows you to have a different angle of view to recreate dynamics and motivation.

What will be the missions of your new role?

It’s going to be about working on the legacy. To transcribe all of this at all levels, up to the clubs and to all employees. Initially, I will be the team’s tutor but keeping enough distance for the coach to get involved quickly. He must be in full possession of the team and able to express his skills. Of course I will support him. My role will be to work on the ecosystem, transversally with the clubs and the federal organization. All this in order to support the French teams towards performance.

A few months after the Olympics, have you come down from your cloud?

The pace is still very intense and there are a lot of demands. Things have changed, it’s no longer the same. There is before the Olympics and after the Olympics. We must be vigilant regarding the construction of the future for the staff, for us and for the players. After the great summits in Los Angeles, Madrid and the Olympic Games, you have to be careful about the comedown. We haven’t completely fallen yet, but we have to be careful about falling.

Will the French 7s team be particularly eagerly awaited in this new season, which begins this weekend in Dubai?

We leave on a four-year cycle and that is the work of Benoît Baby. His responsibility will be to tell a new story and determine a new path with new players and new associations. The competition format will evolve, this is already the case between Dubai and Cape Town, where we go from three pools of four teams to four pools of three teams. There is a new universe, in which everything is constantly transforming. Everyone is expected and everyone can win over anyone. We were very successful at the end of last season, now we are starting from scratch. Nobody is waiting for anyone.

Your famous dance toured the world this summer. Will the French team continue to work on this type of choreography?

This is work that has been undertaken around mental performance and emotional intelligence. It’s a path that has been very beneficial and has allowed us to take steps forward. It will be up to the new coach to see if he wants to continue using these kinds of tricks.