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Laporte raises concern over long seasons

Thursday 08th February 2007

Concerned: Bernard Laporte

France coach Bernard Laporte has raised the concern over the over-playing of players in France, after his training this week was heavily disrupted by injury and fatigue.

Laporte has been observing his 40-strong squad over the past two weeks at the training centre in Marcoussis - nicknamed 'Marcatraz' by some of the players - with 22 players preparing for the weekend's game and the other 18 on a fitness schedule.

"We must stop exhausting them or those young men will turn into ugly old men," he told journalists on Thursday.

"Today (Thursday), only eight of the 18 were fit to train. As for the 22, it was the first time this week they were all on the pitch", he said.

"I'm a bit puzzled because when you only have at your disposal 22 players selected because they are fit you don't assess the extent of the problem.

"But when you see in a 40-player squad the number of players who can't train and, among the players who can, how many have knocks, you understand that we should stop forcing them to play so many games during a season."

Two of the forty, Dimitri Szarzewski and Benjamin Boyet, have been ruled out of the entire Six Nations with long-term injuries requiring operations.

Thomas Castaignède, Damien Traille, Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, Elvis Vermeulen, Yannick Nyanga and Thierry Dusautoir are all unavailable for the opening two Six Nations matches, and fly-half Frédéric Michalak and team captain, lock Fabien Pelous are also sidelined for the tournament.

"We'll have a gap of two weeks between the Ireland and Wales games and we hope that most of the injured players, including Castaignède and Traille, will have recovered," Laporte said.

"As far as Pelous is concerned, we may have to wait until the last two games."

One player not worrying about fatigue is prop Sylvain Marconnet, who is about to reach the 70-cap milestone, a record for a French prop.

"It is more anecdotal stuff for now, but I expect I will appreciate it more at the end of my career," said the modest Stade Français player.

"To be honest, right now I am searching more for prizes than for records.

"We might get a Grand Slam thiis year, with Stade Français I am well-positioned in the (Top 14) championship and in Europe. Add to that the Rugby World Cup, and it could be an incredible year."