This Thursday morning, Didier Lacroix invited the press to a breakfast in the premises of the brand new Grand Café du Stade Toulousain, boulevard Lazare-Carnot, in the city center. A place open for a week, where club supporters and sports fans in general will be able to watch Stadium matches or any major sporting event on television screens while being watched by the portraits drawn and framed on the walls of the greatest elders of the red and black house.
The president of Stade Toulousain first spoke about the good financial health of the club and the excellent recent results obtained in the Champions Cup (two victories in two matches) before dwelling on one of the current topics of the moment , discussions between the clubs, the FFR and the staff of the French team regarding the provision of internationals.
“As the French team needed to redo its plan of attack for the next four years, i.e. until the next World Cup in Australia (2027), we began to discuss in a courteous, firm and honest manner. language of wood, he explains. As always, it’s about looking into the distance so as not to go in all directions, but also about managing the emergency with the next Six Nations Tournament which will soon arrive. The particularity of this next Tournament is that the Blues will attack it against the Irish ogre (February 2). The objective of the French team is therefore to perform well very quickly to put the last match of the World Cup (lost against South Africa in the quarter-finals) out of their minds once and for all. »
Fixed “in around ten days, maximum”
“The Blues staff presented us with a certain number of new requirements, which are still under discussion,” continues Lacroix. On preparation times and the number of players, in particular, we have not yet agreed. In about ten days, maximum, we will be settled. Either to use the previous formula with 42 players made available and 14 players returned to their club in the middle of the week (to keep only 28 until the match), or to narrow the group from 42 to 34 players. The day of release of the 14 players or the 6 (in the event of an increase to 34) is also still under discussion. Because the specificity of this Tournament, with one match on Friday (against Ireland) and two on Sunday (against Italy and Wales), complicates things. If all matches took place on Saturday, there would be release dates on Wednesday, as usual. However, it is not the case. So it comes down to negotiation. Do we release players on Wednesday or Thursday? Do we stay at 42 players or do we go to 34? »
“You know, it’s sometimes annoying not to be able to get people back within a day to negotiate a doubles match. So we have to go into detail”
Didier Lacroix, president of Stade Toulousain
“More and more often, matches are decided by a few points,” he concludes. However, these points can lean one way or the other depending on whether or not we recover a player in time to play at the club on the weekend. You know, it’s sometimes annoying not to be able to get people back within a day to negotiate a duplicate match. We therefore need to go into detail. In our eyes, there were some incredibly strong moments in preparation for the World Cup last season. But when we are four years away from the next World Cup, these moments must be thought about differently, with a different temporality. The conditions of the next six months will not necessarily be those of the six months preceding the next World Cup in Australia. We are intelligent enough to know how to readjust things. »
