Stade Français have built a reputation for doing things a little differently. An example came under Nick Mallett. When the club reached the middle of the winter without being as well-placed as they would have liked, a break in the championship for the Six Nations meant they had a week without a game. Mallett might easily have used this as a training camp to try to whip them into shape after a disappointing start to the season. Instead, the South African took his troops off to the alps for a few days skiing, far from the muddy, and occasionally frozen, training grounds of the capital. Some skiing went on—by all accounts there was quite a bit of apres-ski as well—but Mallett let the team get on with pretty much whatever they felt like. Some observers—and even, I think, some of the team—thought this was crazy, but Mallett had read the situation brilliantly. The players came back refreshed and ready for the business end of the season, and went on to win the championship.
When rugby went professional, players could spend more time training, and this led to an improvement in player skills and levels of physical preparation. In addition, clubs became employers, rather than people organising what you did for fun, and because they were paying they wanted to see you sweat. This was fair enough, and by and large standards of play have risen considerably. However, if your work ethic is telling you that to get an edge you will have to train relentlessly— more than the other guys—the positive effects of repetition can easily slip into overkill: everyone else is working hard, and to do more than them you have to do a hell of a lot. Quite quickly, something you once enjoyed can make you wonder whether you want to get out of bed in the morning.
Enthusiasm is one of the keys to playing well, and if spending a week skiing allows a team to bond in a healthy way and forget about scrums and line-outs and rucking and mauling and tackling and catching and passing and kicking and all the rest of their normal activities, and they are mature enough to use the time to recharge their batteries, it is worth doing.
Enthusiasm is easy to have when you're young and recovering quickly. As the years wear on, rugby takes a toll on your body and, up to a point, your mind. Having to worry about creaking knees, a sore back, and that shoulder niggle that just won't go away, takes some of the shine off your enjoyment, even if it doesn't affect your determination.
And enthusiasm goes hand in hand with confidence, which is a massively important part of a player's mental ability. When I was about twenty, having played for the New Zealand Colts I considered myself an All Black-in-waiting: it was just a matter of time, I thought, before I would be one of the world's best players. I was already in the ante-room. Now that I have played a couple of hundred first-class games and never got within shouting distance of an All Black jersey, this attitude strikes me as seriously deluded, but at the time it was a major asset. Going on to the field believing you are better than the other guy gives you a massive head start. Such confidence can't last, obviously, but while it does you are hard to beat.
When eventually you have to come to terms with the fact that there are people out there who are at least as good as you, and perhaps quite a bit better, it's character-building, but it isn't necessarily a good thing for your game. Instead of going out saying to yourself that you are going to prove you are better than the guy opposite, you wonder how good he is, and all the little things that may go wrong crowd into your consciousness. One of the hardest, but most vital, things in sport is to learn how to lose from time to time. All the things you thought made you so good have to be re-examined, and your failings identified and broken down. Only then can you build yourself back up to become a better player.
People find their confidence in different ways, and humility is good protection from falling too far, but if you want to compete with the best you have to rate yourself highly, and this means treading a fine line between confidence and arrogance—not swaggering around as though you own the place, but having faith in your ability to come out ahead of the other guy. The margin between individuals at the top level of most sports is very small. In a 100-metre final, all runners will probably finish within one or two metres of their competitors and it will be the one who gets his or her nose in front who wins. What is going on in your head can make all the difference.
Ending up with a big ego is rare in rugby, as in most team sports, because you are surrounded by fellow players who will let you know if you have an inflated idea of yourself. Commanders of Roman armies were allowed to parade through the streets of Rome after victorious campaigns, but the senate ensured that they had someone alongside them in the chariot to whisper in their ear, 'Memento mori' ('Remember you will die'). At the end of the English season, just before our return game against Stade Français, Jonny Wilkinson comes down to stay with Harley Crane—they used to play at Newcastle together. Wilkinson may be the highest paid player in world rugby, and the man who won the World Cup for England, but he still has to deal with Crano relentlessly roasting him about his dodgy haircut.
Mental maturity is supposed to come with experience, and French clubs tend to value experience over youth, often buying in older foreign players rather than giving younger home-grown ones a chance; there's a feeling that young players need to prove themselves over a number of seasons at lower levels. In New Zealand the attitude is quite different: if you're good enough, you're old enough. Indeed, thirty is considered the start of the downhill run, while in France there are plenty of players in their early thirties who are considered to be at their peak. The average age of the All Blacks' 2006 squad was 25.5, while for the French Six Nations squad it was 28.5.
I have personally benefited from the French emphasis on experience, but its importance may be an illusion: once a player has mastered the fundamentals, rugby is not very complicated. If you can handle the jump to a higher level, you will come into contact with better players and progress quickly. And often the younger you are, the more quickly you adapt. This year in Montpellier we have had the example of Fulgence ('Fufu') Ouedraogo, who has improved so dramatically at the age of twenty that, having started the season in the Espoirs, he is now one of our best players.
This is good news for the club, but fairly average news for the other flankers: as we are ringing the changes, some are on the way out. During one of the particularly flat training sessions we have before the last game against Stade Français, Didier Bes and Thierry Pérez have a long conversation on the sideline. Judging by Didier's sharp-edged gesticulations and Thierry's stony face, it doesn't look good for Didier, and during the period between the end of this season and the start of the next he is shunted off to coach the Reichels, the Under 21 piranhas. This is hard on him: the forwards have been solid in his domain of scrums and line-outs all year. If anything, it's been one of our strengths.
Meanwhile, Thierry announces that Nourault is staying on. Jérôme has earlier organised a 'democratic' vote on whether Nourault should coach us next season. The result was massively against, but Thierry has made his decision.
Alain Hyardet is confirmed as the replacement for Pat Arlettaz as backs' coach. Olivier Sarraméa from Stade Français, Argentinian Federico Todeschini from Béziers and Didier Chouchan from Biarritz are confirmed as new recruits. Again, this is good news for the club because they are good players, but less good news for the people whose places they will no doubt occupy, and there are one or two long faces when we hear the news.
The Georgian Mamuka Magrakvelidze has not had his contract renewed, and our fullback Fred Benazech has been 'let go', despite having another year on his contract. Everyone else will be back again to start pre-season in just over a month.
Except me, of course. As I go into what will be my last game of rugby I find myself unable to take in the enormity of the fact that, after 25 years, I won't be doing this again. This is coupled with the unpleasant realisation that I now have to find a 'real' job. Professional rugby looks a sweet deal when you are in your early twenties, and your non-rugby-playing friends are struggling to find work, or starting at the bottom of a career ladder. However, now I am in my early thirties and my friends have managed to work their way up the career ladder, I am the one who has to start at the bottom.
In the changing-room before the game, I try to drink in the atmosphere and ignore the void that lies ahead, but idle thoughts drift across my mind. I wonder whether I should go and have a massage. Lots of players do, but I have always thought it would send me to sleep so I've never bothered. Now I'll never have the chance again. And it's free. Christ, I'm going to start having to pay if I want to go to the gym.
Come on, concentrate. You need to play well, to finish on a good note. I visualise things I will be doing in the game, make sure I have a mental image of doing them well, and busy myself with my boots. We go out to warm up, and I am reminded of how hot it is. All the games are being played at the same time, three o'clock on Saturday afternoon, so that no club has an advantage, but summer starts early in the south of France, and already it is well over 30 degrees.
After the warm-up we come back into the changing-room and pour water over ourselves in an attempt to cool down. Then we make our usual preparations. In my case it's Vaseline on the ears, Vicks VapoRub under the nose, and a strap around my left wrist to prevent the bone popping out. We huddle together for a few final words. It seems so unreal I can't register what is said.
Fred Benazech and I lead the team out with our arms around each other. We have played together for two seasons but it is only in the last couple of weeks that I have started to understand him. I have heard that at the Agen game he was misty-eyed in the changing-room: he had just that week heard the club wouldn't be keeping him on.
I had always thought Fred wasn't really interested in excelling. I once heard him greeted by a journalist as 'the greatest waste of talent in French rugby', which he seemed to take as a compliment. I have seen him throw out of the back of his hand, behind his own goal-line, a suicidal 30-yard reverse pass that was intercepted and a seven-point gift to the opposition, but I have also seen him run a ball back from 70 yards out through most of the opposing team and score an amazing individual try.
It's not, I've come to realise, that he's not interested: he has just held on to the simple joy of risk-taking, and rates this above playing a dour, safe percentage game. This is what commentators mean when they talk about French flair, and you don't see much of it these days. Playing this kind of game matters to him enough that, although he's nearly the same age as I am, he is going to play another year of rugby with a third-division club.
Determined to do something impressive in my last game, I run around like a rookie, and when a break in play allows me to look at the clock I see there are only seven minutes gone. How am I going to make it to half-time in this heat? The Parisians, seeing the game as a dress rehearsal for next week's semifinal, have their best side out and are in impressive form, while we are mentally at the beach having barbecues.
A couple of minutes later Fred goes off injured. It's still nil all, but it won't stay that way for long. We are using up a massive amount of energy just to hold on to our own ball. Scrums are such a struggle that after a couple, despite knowing I am needed at the next phase, I lurk on the wing, knackered, until I can catch my breath. I take up the ball a few times and have a hell of a time holding on to it in contact. Stade Française are in like robbers' dogs, low, strong and very hard to shift, and once I am penalised for not releasing.
After 20 minutes Skrela kicks a penalty. This is a turning point: Stade Français score twice in quick succession, and after 25 minutes the score is 0–15. They dominate every phase of play. I manage to pull down a couple of their mauls, but when I miss one they roll right over the top of me, and unlike the gentlemanly Biarritz pack, they really work me over, deliberately targeting weak points. Knees and ankle joints, where there is less flesh, are vulnerable, and even though I am wearing shin-pads my lower legs begin to look like as though someone has been playing noughts and crosses on them with a knife.
With five minutes to the break, David Bortolussi dots down for us to make it 5–15, but Stade Français score again, and then convert to make it 5–22. At half-time, as we are dousing ourselves again, it occurs to me that people die from heatstroke in conditions like these. How long will I have to stay on before Nourault pulls me off?
One of the big differences between the two teams is that we go to ground and waste time and energy having to recycle the ball, while Stade Français keep it alive, making passes out of contact situations. Partly this is because their players have good individual skills, but it's also because we haven't placed enough emphasis in training on passing in the contact zone. Hopefully, the lesson will be learned for next year.
I leave the field, mercifully, just ten minutes into the second half. Stade Français score again to put the game beyond any lingering doubt at 5–29, but then we manage a brace of rapid-fire tries, one by Régis Lespinas and another by Laurent Arbo, well set up by Seb Mercier, who shimmies through the opposition centres and runs 60 metres before offloading to Lolo. Just to drive the nail home, Stade Français score another couple of tries, making it 17–43, but Lolo Arbo has the final word. As his second try is our fourth, we get a bonus point, making the whole thing look a little more respectable.
Meanwhile, Pau and Bayonne both lose their games, so Pau finish on 40 points and go down, while Bayonne end up on 43, us on 46 and Narbonne on 47. Castres, on 66, head off Montferrand, on 63, to qualify for the European Cup next season.
Ideally, the last game of a career would be one in which your team wins the championship, or at least the game, but I manage to convince myself the result was a good one for me because, coming on the heels of the Biarritz game, it convinced me I no longer have what it takes to compete at the top level. Against anyone other than the big three, I think I still hold my own (a bit like Montpellier), and were I to be lucky enough to be playing in one of these teams I might be carried for another season. But there is no room for margin of error in a small club. I might be able to find another club that needed someone like me, but it would probably be in the second division, and I don't want to spend another season just hanging on. As it is, my body has been giving me warning signs most of this year.
Despite being hammered, we do a little run round the pitch—not so much a victory lap as a 'we're still here' lap— clapping the supporters and being clapped by them. Nico Grelon and Philemon Toleafoa hoist me up on their shoulders, and I perch uncomfortably for about ten yards before Nico says, 'Putain, il est lourd, l'ancien' ('Fuck, the old man is heavy') and they put me down.
As the old man of Montpellier, I am intensely aware of how the game has changed since I was a young player. When I played my first game for Wellington in 1994, lifting in the line-out was still outlawed, tries had been worth five points for only a couple of years, and flankers could break off the side of the scrum. I remember this particularly because I was considered mobile enough in those days to be stuck on the flank, and for that first game, against Auckland, I had to cope with an All Black back row of Zinzan Brooke, Michael Jones and Mark Carter. Most of the time I hovered about a metre off the scrum, terrified they would rumble my cart-horse speed off the mark. All I got from the game was a ticket so my Mum could watch from the stands, and a memory that I plan to take with me to the grave.
Just a few years later I was heading back to Paris with Racing Club. We had won the semifinal that meant we qualified to go up to the first division. As we were celebrating we called the club president, Gerald Martinez, down to the back of the bus. He arrived with a big grin, certain we were going to get him involved in drinking games or similar mischief. In fact, we asked him for a bonus. The grin crumpled.
It would be hypocritical of me, one of the first wave of rugby's international mercenaries, to mourn the passing of the amateur era. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to make money out of what I enjoy doing. But I can't help hoping that rugby doesn't become a multinational corporation and lose its human touch. Winston Churchill once said, 'We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.' In the years to come, I hope that rugby players— amateurs, professionals and mercenaries—make sure they give at least as good as they get.