His CV as a pharmaceutical engineer details in English a busy professional life. At 55, Cyril Savy today holds the position of diabetes manager in emerging countries at Sanofi. But, further down in the list of his various positions, a small line summarizes the indelible mark he has left for thirty years in rugby, perceptible in each of the matches of this World Cup: “invented the tee”.
The tee? It is this small plastic object brought to the scorers to allow them to stabilize their ball before attempting to kick it between the poles, for a penalty or a conversion. A classic rugby scene, but not that dated. For a long time, the players responsible for this function put their ball on a mound of sand compacted by themselves or in a hole dug hastily with crampons. Sometimes even asking a partner to hold the ball with their fingertips until the moment of the shot.
“The ball holds well, and what’s more it goes further and straighter”
Everything changed one fine day in the winter of 1987. Direction Aveyron. Launched into his pharmacy studies, Cyril Savy is also the back of Stade ruthénois, the Rodez club. But the striker encountered a serious problem that day in training: the pitch was completely frozen, which prevented him from preparing his hole to place his ball.
“I have nothing to put it down,” remembers the ex-rugby player. I’m desperately looking for a way to hold my ball, when my eye falls on plastic cones installed by my coach to mark out the field. I take one, put the ball on it and shoot. And there, the result is incredible. The ball holds well, and what’s more it goes further and straighter. »
The success of his experiment encouraged him to try to import his device. The following Sunday, during a bitterly cold weekend, Cyril Savy stood in front of the referee with his plastic cone. “I sold him that we could use not sand, but this utensil,” explains the former rear. My arguments? It doesn’t damage the lawn, you take it out afterwards and even if you forget it, no one can get hurt with it. He said that we accepted an element external to the field with sand, and that nothing in the regulations prohibited its use. »
“People always ask me if I made money from it”
The cone serves one match, then two, three… before a complaint which brings him before the French Rugby Federation. “We defended my case, they told me that they would decide at the end of the season,” remembers Cyril Savy. Except that in the meantime, others have started to use it too. It was democratized, then it spread all over the world. »
Cyril Savy is, it seems, not the only one to have had this idea at the end of the 1980s. Several Anglo-Saxon media report that a former Canadian player, Don Burgess, had the idea while watching matches at the first World Cup, in 1987, to develop a rubber tee, finding it more practical than sand. But the competition took place from May to June, while Cyril Savy dates his find to the beginning of the year.
The tee only really supplanted sand in the early 2000s, the latter having retained its fans for some time, like here the Welshman Neil Jenkins during the opening match of the 1999 World Cup. AFP/François Guillot
“The people I tell this story to always ask me if I made money from it,” he smiles. The answer is simple: no. For a good reason: I didn’t create something. I used something existing, a cone, to put it to a different use. And I don’t think we can patent that. »
Since then, equipment manufacturers have evolved the shape of the rugby tee, which ended up definitively replacing sand in the early 2000s. Cyril Savy played in two French first division championship finals with Grenoble (1993) then Castres (1995). ), before devoting himself to his career in the pharmaceutical industry. Making forever fame in his sport with a small piece of plastic thrown one day on a field in Aveyron.
