Laporte on mission to get France fit for task
We’re being used as guinea pigs and no-one knows if it will have a direct impact - Guy Noves
The grunting and the groaning and, yes, the blood, sweat and tears on occasion, are about to start for those players tasked with winning games for France.
But with a difference this time. Starting tomorrow and for the next six weeks, an elite squad of 45 internationals will follow a fitness programme devised exclusively by Bernard Laporte’s Federation.
They say, of course, that all the individual regimes concocted for each player have been produced in concertation with their club coaches.
So much for the politics. In fact, several of those very coaches from the nine Top 14 clubs who provide the France squad between them are not convinced that the idea will be of much help to them at all. Or if their supposed input mattered one bit.
France comes first, Laporte decreed as soon as he was elected Federation president. Thus the power grab that imposes his own men’s notion of the physical preparation required for the new season.
No matter that his desire to peak for the November Tests against the All Blacks, South Africa and Japan might conflict with different states of readiness for the clubs.
One Top 14 coach, remaining wisely anonymous, voiced the concern: “I will need someone to explain to me how you can have physical preparation targeting precise fixtures when those of France are not the same as those of the clubs”.
The physical trainers of the nine clubs concerned (Bordeaux-Begles, Brive, Clermont, La Rochelle, Montpellier, Stade Francais, Racing, Toulon and Toulouse) met national coach Guy Noves and his counterpart staff in the week to present the details.
He will have felt at home as the event took place at the Ernest-Wallon stadium where he reigned for two decades as the Toulouse boss with a record unmatched in French history.
Winning with France is a different matter as the recent three clear defeats in South Africa show. He is convinced, however, that things are not as bad as they look.
He says: “We finished third in the last Six Nations, held our own against England on their ground, lost narrowly to the All Blacks in November and would have beaten Australia but for a refereeing error”.
You cannot blame him for perhaps gilding the lily as he points out that, if he doubts his men, it would do nothing for their confidence.
Laporte, his boss, has given him a target of three wins out of four in a November period that includes two games against the All Blacks. Or else.
Noves, though, appears to be quite right in not putting too much faith in immediate results from this start of a Federation initiative.
He explained: “This in no way guarantees success in November. There is no certainty about the result of this work.
“We are being used as guinea pigs for this new way of working and noone knows whether it will have a direct impact on our next games.
“Even if we do well, it will be difficult to attribute that to this physical preparation alone. We are traditionally better in November because we are in the middle of our season. This work will have to be repeated for it to bear fruit.”
In other words, Noves rejects any ultimatum and that makes obvious sense. Perhaps not so much, though, to Laporte, a man in a hurry who has a dream of staging the 2023 World Cup and winning it.
Noves, right, naturally, understands the concerns of club coaches having the preparation of their own players taken out of their hands.
He said: “Each club is different. I coached Toulouse for a long time and the target of our summer preparation was not September but October with the arrival of the European Cup.
“Other clubs are obliged to be on form from the very start so as not to lose too much ground.
“The only club that is very impacted by this is Clermont, who have a great number of players on our list. But they are also a club who have already proved their capacity for having two teams and interchanging them with no great difference in results.
“Generally speaking, I do not think the physical preparation that we are constructing will be so much of a handicap for the clubs.”
The French Federation do not have the financial might of the Rugby Union, who can place their own trainers in the clubs. So much is taken on trust.
In the case of Toulon, for example, who leave on Tuesday for a two-week tour of Argentina with four internationals and Federation instructions on how they are to be trained separately from the rest of the squad.
When you consider the injuries which plague the Top 14 increasingly, it is little wonder that the elite squad destined to be given special treatment and be protected from fatigue has been extended to 45.
It would be no surprise to anyone, though, if France end up selecting players from outside that number during the season ahead.