LONG READ Why France's potential next head coach looked to South Africa for inspiration

Yannick Bru is a peculiarity among the clique of French coaches in the Top 14. He is not parochial. Perhaps his broad mind is one reason why his Bordeaux side may soon gain admittance to an exclusive club.

Beat Leinster in the Champions Cup final on Saturday week and Bordeaux will join Leicester, Leinster, Toulon, Saracens and La Rochelle in that small band who have won back-to-back European titles.
Bru has a gifted squad at his disposal but he has brought to Bordeaux a ferociousness that Nick Bishop explained on this site after they had dumped Toulouse out of the Champions Cup in April. The biggest problem, for Toulouse, said Bishop, “ was escaping the stranglehold of UBB pressure at the defensive breakdown. By the end of the game, UBB had won 11 turnovers in and around the tackle area.”

There is a touch of South Africa to how the Bordeaux pack go about their game, which isn’t just down to the fact that former Shark & Springbok Shaun Sowerby is their forwards coach.
Bru spent a year as the Sharks’ breakdown coach in 2022-23, an experience that he says has been hugely influential in his development

At the time the 52-year-old Bru went to Durban his coaching career seemed to be stagnating. After retiring from playing in 2007, Bru, who won 18 caps as a hooker for France, cut his coaching teeth with Toulouse. This was the club where he’d spent the bulk of his playing career.

He left Toulouse in 2012 to take up the same position as forwards coach for France at the invitation of Philippe Saint-Andre. The next six seasons were dismal, for France and for Bru. In all but one Six Nations, the Bleus finished in the bottom half of the table and there was also the infamous 62-13 thrashing by New Zealand in the quarter-final of the 2015 World Cup.

Guy Noves, Bru’s coaching mentor at Toulouse, replaced Saint-Andre after the World Cup debacle, but he didn’t last long. Noves, along with Bru and the rest of the coaching staff, were sacked by FFR president Bernard Laporte in December 2017.

It was the most turbulent period for the national team in living memory, and while Noves shuffled off into retirement (notwithstanding a long and bitter legal battle with the FFR), Bru was left wondering how to rejuvenate his career.

Bru’s appointment was a canny move on the part of the Sharks, who wanted a French insight as they prepared for their first season playing in the Champions Cup.

He was appointed head coach of Bayonne in the summer of 2018 with instructions to guide the Basque club from the ProD2 back to the Top 14. Bru accomplished his mission in his first season. But the stay was short-lived. Bayonne were relegated in June 2021 and in November that year it was announced he would leave at the end of that season. “I’ve been coaching non-stop for fourteen years, and I really felt the need to take a breather and recharge before starting another adventure,” explained Bru, who signed off at Bayonne by helping them back into the Top 14.

In fact, Bru’s breather didn’t last long. In July 2022 the Sharks unveiled their new coaching team, led by Neil Powell and including Bru as the breakdown coach. “As a coach who has worked with high profile players and teams, he is a great addition to our coaching unit and joins us on a one-year deal with the option to renew,” said the Sharks in a press release. It was a move enabled by the Sharks’ CEO, Eduard Coetzee, who had befriended Bru during their days playing in the Top 14.

It was a canny move on the part of the Sharks, who wanted a French insight as they prepared for their first season playing in the Champions Cup.

Bru didn’t opt to renew his contract but the season he spent in South Africa transformed his coaching career. In December 2022 he told a French newspaper why he had accepted the Sharks’ role. “I felt the need to take a step back from French rugby,” he said. “I felt like I’d experienced every aspect…I also wanted to further my education. One of the problems with our profession is that we no longer take the time to do so. This was the perfect opportunity to take a year off to discover a different way of training and thinking.”

With eleven Springboks in the Sharks’ squad at the time, Bru said it was a steep – but rewarding – learning curve. “I’m working on our opponents’ plays and what they call ‘attacking breakdowns’ and ‘defensive breakdowns’—that is, everything related to collisions and ground play.”

The South Africans, Bru explained, “are very methodical and strict about following procedures. I’m discovering a different approach to coaching, and it’s very refreshing.”

A few weeks later, in January 2023, Bordeaux announced that Bru would be their head coach for the following season, replacing Christophe Urios, sacked the previous November after a run of bad results.

Next week’s Champions Cup showdown against Leinster will be the club’s fourth final in two years; they’ve lost their two Top 14 finals to Toulouse but could secure their second European crown at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao.

Urios and Bru belong to the same generation as do the majority of French head coaches in the Top 14: Laurent Labit, Patrice Collazo, Ugo Mola, Xavier Sadourny, Pierre Mignoni, Karim Ghezal and Laurent Travers.

These coaches have been on the Top 14 carousel for years. Urios, 60, is now head coach at Clermont. In the last quarter of a century he’s coached at Castres (twice), Bourgoin, Oyonnax and Bordeaux.

Collazo, now in charge at Racing 92, has worked his way through La Rochelle, Toulon, Brive and Montpellier in the last 15 years.

They’re decent coaches but, rather like most English football managers, they have a narrow perspective because they haven’t dared leave their coaching comfort zone.

Bru did, and Bordeaux are reaping the benefit. Next week’s Champions Cup showdown against Leinster will be the club’s fourth final in two years; they’ve lost their two Top 14 finals to Toulouse but could secure their second European crown at the San Mames stadium in Bilbao.

In a recent interview with Bordeaux’s official podcast, Bru reiterated how beneficial his season with the Sharks had been. It had been an education, from a coaching and cultural perspective. “It was also like going back to college for me,” he said. “I took a new course in management. I learned a lot, particularly about the living conditions of the people and the players outside of rugby, which shape their commitment on the field.”

Bru returned with an understanding of what makes South African rugby such a force. “When it comes to the effort required in a rugby team, we often see that South Africans are a cut above the rest. It’s not just their physical attributes that help them. It’s also a truly unique mindset.”

It may be unique but Bru is doing his best to transform Bordeaux into a team that plays and thinks like South Africans.