Professionals Playing in the Park: Some Thoughts

Some players feel stifled by the atmosphere of professional rugby – for many, it erodes the joy they took from the game as a youngster. They understand how lucky they are, of course, but relative to how they used to enjoy the game, it holds little for them. This doesn’t create good rugby players.

The answer lies in marrying the two: by reducing the amount rugby is a job and increasing the creative nature of rugby. We need to reject all the clichés of professionalism such as mentally striving for constant improvement, the body being a temple and approaching each session as another opportunity to improve and all the claptrap that follows the words, ‘you’re a professional’. All that has to be thrown off. Changes in mood and just how we feel day to day are natural and should be bowed to, not ploughed through. If you assume that pressure (I mean these external pressures – I’m all in favour of training under pressure) is bad for performance then performance (quality of play) can only be improved by throwing off those pressures mentioned above.

I’m not saying that pressure in competition isn’t sometimes healthy, of course we have to train under pressure –that’s quite different. The route to destruction is paved with those who allowed the daily pressures of professional sport to wear them down. Maybe I’m wrong, and these people are Olympic Gold Medal winners. But for me, rugby is a game, thinking of it as anything else simply invites these pressures that, for me, are nothing but self-destructive. That doesn’t mean I approach training with a wilful abandon that leads to me taking the piss or not caring when I throw a shit pass – there is something inside the vast majority of players at all levels that prevents that attitude. However, to a certain extent, a poor pass is not the end of the world, especially in training, and it is day-to-day training I’m talking about. It’s not about accepting sloppiness, that’s unacceptable, it’s about proportion.

Only when the idea of the professional’s existence being a rugby machine whose raison d’etre is to produce tackles, passes and kicks interspersed with squats and deadlifts is thrown off can creativity be allowed in.

Let us return to rugby in the park. Rugby prides itself on its cerebral element but surely we play best when it’s instinctive. So it was when we were young, we didn’t think about it. And when it was something we did 3 or 4 times a week we probably didn’t think about it, or if we did it was a case of enjoying the cerebral issues the game presents, but crucially as an antidote to the grind of daily life. Rugby was a glorious escape! When rugby becomes the norm, it becomes mundane and this becomes very difficult to reverse. So the challenge remains of trying to turn everyday training into a game in the park, improving players by becoming more instinctive, to allow us this side of us out. Surely this is the aim if that’s how we want to play on a Saturday afternoon.

I think some professional structures are damaging to players and performance. Professionalism has brought us the opportunity to train more, but that must not be abused. We have to train smart. It has to remain fun, like a match. If the phrase, ‘play as we train, train as we play’ is something to live by, and it should be, then let’s train instinctively and not by numbers.

We surely have to recognise what sport is to our psyche: a game with direct associations with childhood. What I earlier called the clichés of professionalism should be forgotten, for they are detrimental to our performance on a Saturday afternoon. As an approach, it isn’t weak, it isn’t wishy-washy and it doesn’t sacrifice hard work as a central tenet. It prioritises empowering players with the freedom (and responsibility) to play and training them in such a way that their brains and movements become more, not less, instinctive.

Top 14 Round-Up: Super Saturday!

If Sky Sports ever got hold of the rights to show French Top 14 rugby, and by God that’s one of my dreams in life, today would be SUPER SATURDAY. In the South, it’s the two fattest wallets in world rugby as Toulon travel inland to Toulouse. In Paris, at the Stade de France, Stade Francais Paris host to Racing Métro 92.

If there was ever a day that summed up the glorious excess of this league, today is that day. There are stars galore. In Paris, Juan Martin Hernandez and Felipe Contepomi return to the site of their greatest triumph, on the pitch that was theirs during the 2007 RWC. In Toulouse, it’s Wilkinson and Giteau against Beauxis and McAlister, who moves from 10 to 12 to accommodate the stocky Frenchman. The former All Black has been the best back in the league so far this season.

Racing president Jacky Lorenzetti was kicking up a fuss this week when his Stade counterpart said they would be wearing their home shirts, pink and white. Apparently this means that Racing won’t be able to wear their ciel et blanc shirts. “This was supposed to be a derby of great tradition, but sadly we are not allowed to wear our blue and white. I don’t see the problem with pink and white against blue and white...”

Stade were in a lot of financial difficulty last year and long time President, and fan of pink, Max Guazzini handed over the reins to Thomas Savare. Guazzini gave an interview last year where he acknowledged that he would never host Racing at the Stade de France as that would be an admission that they had returned to the big time. He preferred to bring Toulouse, Toulon and Clermont to the big stadium. So today is a big day for Racing. They’ll remember last year when they themselves hosted Toulouse at the Stade and put 40 points on the Toulousains. Inevitably, there will be pink flags, some sort of pre-match show and fireworks.

Back on the south coast, a world away from the Parisian bitching, change is afoot at Toulon. Last year they flattered to deceive, a shining example of a team of stars failing to gel. This year looks like it may be different. With Philippe Saint-Andre now head coach of the national team, Bernard Laporte, former national coach himself (and Sarko’s Minister for Sport...or something like that) has taken over the reins – reins held very tightly indeed by the money man Mourad Boudjellal. Toulouse should win, they just have too much class. 

Oh to be in Toulouse on a day like this. I’ve never been, so I can’t really talk, but there must be few towns on match day that beat with such a rugby pulse. Limerick, Perpignan, perhaps Toulon itself.

That’s all the razzmatazz stuff out the way, now we can focus on the proper rugby. Tough fixtures indeed in the Pro D2, the pick of which is Albi vs. Mont-de-Marsan. Waisale Serevi used to play for Mont-de-Marsan, and now William Ryder, who tore up the IRB 7s circuit for a couple of years in such style that led to him becoming the great pretender to Serevi’s crown, is now playing there himself. He is no doubt earning a lot of money, but it seems a shame that he has fallen off the world stage. The lot of the 7s specialist: 7s stardom travelling the circuit for little money or solid XVs rugby at a lower level.

It’s a fairly dull student Saturday in Exeter, with sleepy stereotypical pajama-ed students shuffling down to brunch with the prospect of essays awaiting them all afternoon. Me? I’ll be in Paris, cheering on Racing. Or maybe I’ll pop down to Toulouse. Wherever this afternoon’s rugby takes me, I’ll always have one eye on chilly Bourgoin as they welcome Beziers to their Alpine fortress. Why? I'll tell you why: because there is just as much joy to be found in that sort of gritty encounter as there is at the Stade de France. And only in France can you enjoy both.