You've talked a lot about trust since your appointment, was that your main task?
Franck Azéma:
It is linked to the context of defeats.
It's not just Toulon.
By dint of losing matches, little by little, we are reducing the sails and we are afraid.
We must have confidence in what we will have worked on.
Little by little, we must therefore reverse the dynamic and then accelerate it so that it snowballs in our favor.
I discover the players.
I find that the quality of investment is good: the boys try to appropriate certain things.
I am still waiting for us to raise our standards in certain sectors, in terms of taking individual responsibility, for example.
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How to choose your team when you have only recently known your players?
I hear a lot about competition at the opener position but there is it at every position.
So I try to see how the players give the best in training and how they respond to the field.
If it's a quarter of an hour of play, I try to analyze how they behave in this quarter of an hour of play. If they each raise their standards, it's a good concern for me.
It means that we are making the team grow and that's all I'm asking.
Do you feel a particular emulation?
Yes, I can sense the boys involved.
I found the return of the internationals good, their involvement from Monday.
I still find that the start of the week is good but it is not a guarantee, Saturday, in Pau.
There are very good attitudes but they are not satisfactory, we have to look even higher.
The things that we don't have today, we can compensate for them by our cohesion and our desire to be together.
It must be our glue
Franck Azéma
What leverage did you use to regain that confidence?
There is no shortcut. You have to do fundamental and basic things and master them well. There are things that do not change in rugby, such as conquest, defense, territory, mastering the forms of play and their alternations ... I am not inventing anything. You have to know how we work with them on a daily basis, to be comfortable during the match, by having a good toolbox with plenty of things available. It is also having the physique to be able to perform it. The things that we don't have today, we can compensate for them by our cohesion and our desire to be together. It must be our glue.
The previous coach had his playing philosophy. You have a different one ...
I want to get the best out of the players and the staff, so you have to help them to put them in good conditions to be able to progress.
On our game, I'm certainly not going to say that what came before is not good.
On the contrary, there are very good foundations and things that we rely on.
The question is to know how we are going to flesh it out with different things to have a register that allows us to have alternation.
They are not going to force anything on me.
This is also the deal but it is better to have several brains to think about it
Franck Azéma
And the European Challenge in all of this?
It is important.
I hope there will be good conditions to participate.
The Toulon campaign last year was complicated so I hope we will not experience the same ups and downs.
It will allow us to express ourselves and to continue to progress.
Are you already working on recruiting with Bernard Lemaître for next season?
Yes.
We have requirements related to JIFF (players from training courses, Editor's note) and salary cap.
These parameters must be taken into account before considering what would be the most profitable to have vital forces in each line.
Obviously, nothing will be forced on me.
This is also the deal but it is better to have several brains to think about it.
