CASTRES – “SMALL TOWN, BIG CLUB” | CLUB CULTURE – Episode 2

We travelled to one of the Top 14 clubs which has managed to regularly punch above it’s weight. Winning titles and being in the hunt for playoff spots against teams with far bigger budgets. We wanted to get to the bottom of how and where they squeeze out that extra level. Secrets revealed here by Strength and Conditioning Coach, Vincent Giacobbi, and Joe Worsley analyses their style of play.

oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] no I mean not today another day uh strength and conditioning massively important part of rugby these days isn’t it and antoan Dupont think about how well he’s conditioned that tackle he put in against M Hansen in the six nations in 2023 well his body was carved here in this gym with the help of the man that you’re going to hear from next now can we just uh talk about your philosophy on keeping those players fit for that 11 and a half month season the story of it is I was lucky to work in a Anglo-Saxon environment for a couple of years a bit more than a couple of years so taught me uh especially when I was at s for 4 years and 10 years in aay taught me um different sort of uh qualities to work on in different countries so South Africa was obviously more dominant in their strength sort of program and going to England I’ve got the chance to learn about onul load ulation and and basically managing the load of the of the player the load of the player normally refers to how many meters they run and at what speed so there’s that obviously so we can start the cycle from the match we can start the Cy cycle a week cycle from a from a training session the start of the week which our high intensity day will be on on the on the Tuesday usually we have to try to keep them at an optimal level through the 11 and a half months and that’s basically what we targeting to do using different Technologies using obviously uh uh um or different reports we get from GPS data and from uh from all the technology we can use during the week so we’ve got like um a frame of week that don’t change much we don’t have the freedom to uh to change the the different blocks that we got during the week we try to stay more or less give the right the the the right sort of uh info to the pl and not get them into a permanent change well we’ve got like a pmax on the W bike for example we do 4 seconds yes so 4 seconds they explode on a w bike which measures how hard and you’re working and that’s safe enough to do and then we can see the different sort of uh uh regression or progression that the guys the guys can reach on that bike and then we’ve got obviously the um L low intensity session we do and that’s the main uh I would say the main thing to validate on a Monday is to to uh just reintroduce the guy to running slowly with the ball and then we reaching uh we try to get the right Delta as well to uh to to get into our Tuesday session [Music] and uh we uh just try to get as much intensity and that anerobic s of level and capacity which try to develop at the in the afternoon so that’s our two first days so Monday Tuesday day off Wednesday yeah and with recovery again recovery is the thing you push yeah recovery is is very much like a self thing I mean if the guy doesn’t like to be in the water we don’t force him to be in the water we prefer letting the boys uh recover in with the family and uh and enjoy a mental rest from the coaching staff as well um as long as the guy refresh mentally physically and ready to crack on again on Thursday whether it’s a preseason week whether it’s a it’s a a season inseason week but once again there’s no there’s no rules for that uh we like to keep them free and uh obviously give them the right advice about nutrition and addtion um to to accelerate the process of recovery he should have recuperate recuperated from the last match from the last training and we do test them uh little bit with a little bit more constraint on Thursday with a CMG jump so conter movement jump which is a simple jump with your hands on your hip that we can just measure lower body power and lower body uh uh neural neural freshness if I can call it like that [Music] high speed um number of acceleration is high to basically prepare the the the player uh uh in the in the best way for the match we try to keep the work rate low to not fatigue him before pre-match but still hit a good Sprint good good acceleration mhm and get him to be uh on Peak form at the end of the week so yeah that’s the Friday been like a walk through they call it Misan Plus in in France which basically organization all walked and just more intellectual part of the preparation of the match Thursday’s higher than Friday Friday coming down Thursday’s more speed 302 bursts and practicing the launch plays and organized plays come down Friday and then boom match day on Saturday that’s it and that’s that’s your week but remember that’s how a team covers and 11th 11 month season they this is how you have to do it you have to control how far they’re running okay you have to undulate during the week on what they’re doing you have to have low intensity and high intensity sessions there has to be constant monitoring of the individuals to realize when a guy is fatigued or he’s picking up to an injury or and be sensitive to his needs as well as keeping an eye on the greater group the greater good of the group I can’t get across how important that performance side is to allow a team like this to punch above their weight Jo does Joe does okay we’ve come to the team restaurant here in cast where Joe Worley’s about to put his former employers out of out of business but not before you’ve broken down how cast play we’ve heard from some of their players and what are you seeing when you look at when you look at um so they’ve changed we started the process when I was here um of CH trying to change training try and train the guys to be able to play what’s in front of them like we heard about from some of these other clubs being able to adapt and rip teams to shred and accelerate at the right moments CU traditionally Casper the team we’ve talked about with the guys kicking arm wrestling sort of team now let’s have a look at this clip here so po put in a a kick and they don’t react too well the chase isn’t that great cter already thinking here about counterattacking so instead of Po having a defensive line there ready to annihilate anyone a Counterattack in this situation they’ve left space and when cast F this space they’re going to go for it so this first rock they play it in under two seconds with a quick pick and Tom Stan for and then the second Rock’s relatively fast beginning to see that they’re shaping up on the outside were that rock 10 me back where it should have been no chance of attacking But Here There Is there still are six defenders in that front line and one in the back they should defend this well but C put a beautiful first pass now they’ve got to that space out wide now it’s about how they attack this space po are a bit deep and you can already see the players are tracking across too much cuz they’re tracking across too much they’re not leaving just that space out wide they’re leaving a space behind their backs between them here okay and the cast team see this Hulu sees this and now his ability to read the body language of the player in front of the 19 as soon as he changes Direction he slams down that left leg steps and Bam he’s gone he’s got his legs free he’s beaten the tackle now it’s fast ball now it’s game one now people starting to light up and get ready Theon misses a chance to steal the ball here and slow it down and now Santiago Arata knows things on he’s seen the fast ball so just rewinding a little bit here just to check on what’s Happening while this is going on is there are lazy forwards not working to get their spacings and because of that there’s these huge Spaces by the ru and this is what a rat has been looking at and anticipating okay where the prop looking at him he might have a chance of tackling him because he’s looking at naaa he’s got no connection with the inside impossible to stop a man like a Ratt in this situation this is where the boy accelerates even in slow motion it looks impressive then the communications from the players around cuz they practice this all the time flooding through supporting and then just a bit of Genius at the end here p on just taking the options there’s three options there and he just takes the perfect pass to the wing of hute who finishes it off for an amazing score this is the strength of cast at the moment they’re second in the offloads as well so that offloading is a big part of their game if the tackle is not dominant players are able to offload and sports they in place to help them probably not a great option to Counterattack there a poor decision most teams would just go straight to this kicking option but the cast team have noticed there’s some space there on the edge they’re not paying too much attention they get it attack the space a little bit win the oneon-one offload one offload two now it’s time it’s momentum they’re good at playing on top and it’s not just the 10 and NES you pass from the ball that’s a second row passing to a loose head prop okay there’s forwards involved in this they’re capable of finishing these tries again they practice this all the time these transitions the opportunities they’re sensitive to all these options again poor attack here po defend well come out block the outside he bounces back po switched off and he should be dead in this situation but we’ve got players like Ki who can beat a couple of players make the offload into a rat who again always beats men now they got momentum the Englishman tries to slow it down a bit but still cast ready the space where’s the spaces get to it you can see it out wide some decent defense at so be defends and gets hold of him but even now the players are flooding around trying to support there’s still space there to attack and with people like Nea doing what he does this will happen what a score yeah so cast is playing some lovely rubby at the moment but also does get in trouble at times you’re taking risks this can happen Okay you can make these turnovers and out the back this can happen as well so they lose this home game they lose a home game they take a try there and then they simply mess up an exit Rock leaving too much space and time gets all messed up so get turned over and again after the turn over they they that poorly and take a second try so these are points they’re given up which is why they ConEd quite a few points this season why they lost a couple of home games so it’s a strength they’re doing really well but they have to wind their necks in a little bit to to make sure that either they up the skill level not to give those situations away or or take less risk and the The Bravery courage to keep going when things do go wrong and you lose games that that you should win to stick to the plan yeah I mean we heard from toou when we went to that club about they always believe in themselves they’re going to stick to what they do they believe it inherently cast I think had that same belief and they are cluster watch [Music] sh [Music] [Applause] [Music] good [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] n n [Music]