Cédric Chasseur / Photo credit: Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP
The XV of France continues its preparation for the World Cup which will begin in France at the beginning of September. Fabien Galthié’s players have been training for this big meeting for more than a month now. They benefited from a weekend of rest after several very intense days in Marcoussis, where the sessions followed one another at a frantic pace. Europe 1 attended one of them.
“We have to go through it to perform”
On the ground, the Blues chain races and tackles without restraint. The faces are marked by fatigue, but the players multiply the sequences without flinching, encouraged by a demanding staff, ready to leave some vocal cords on the ground.
“I yell a little, I try a little to push them hard,” explains Thibault Giroud, performance director of the XV of France. “You still have to realize that we flirt all the time on the rope, between the very intense training, the risk of injury… You really have to give them a thumbs up. Well, they hate me even more “, he jokes.
Resentful, the players of the France team? Not at all, according to the pillar of La Rochelle, Reda Wardi. “We can’t blame them. What we do is for us. If we want to evolve physically, we have to seek out this area of physical discomfort. So we have to go through that to perform, for the future and to feel much better physically”, explains the player.
After working on speed, explosiveness and their cardio, the Blues will now be able to fully focus on the game with their sights set on a first test against Scotland on Saturday at Murrayfield.