Joe (El-Abd) Blogs: Three games in nine days results in inevitable fatigue and more injuries

It's been a disappointing start to the season for much-fancied Toulon, but as club flanker and FRC columnist Joe El Abd explains playing three games in nine days places a ridiculous strain on players' bodies as they struggle to recover from one match to another...

Last week the Top 14 really jumped into action with three games in nine days. Sadly for Toulon things didn’t quite go to plan. Every team in the competition had the opportunity to really set out a marker with so many games in such a short space of time, but after losing at home to Racing-Métro last Friday things didn’t get off to a good start.

Top 14 League Table

We did however manage to pick ourselves up with a hard-fought victory away against La Rochelle on Wednesday. It wasn’t pretty but as you know any win away in the Top 14 is a good win. At the weekend we went down again away against Brive 27-9. The score line doesn’t really tell the whole story as we had Mafi Kefu, our Australian centre, sent off after only four minutes of play for a high tackle. It was a very harsh decision and I can’t help but believe such a decision would only be given against the away side. Despite this we stayed in the match for about 60 minutes before finally cracking and allowing Brive in for a couple of late scores. Playing with 14 men is difficult under normal circumstances but with it being our third game in nine days it really took its toll.

As a player I love playing rugby but I did find the Top 14 schedule last week rather strange.  It certainly caused a little bit of controversy out here in France. Sébastien Chabal labelled the schedule as “stupid” and that the "Television and the league (LNR) don't consider the health of the players when they draw up the fixture list. They don't give a toss for the health of the players."

Personally I think there are two problems players face with a schedule like last week. The first of these problems is as Chabal mentioned the players’ health.

It takes time to recover from a game of rugby and sometimes seven days is barely enough! Fatigue is probably the biggest contributor to injury in our game and it is therefore in players’ (in fact I hope everyone’s) interests to go into each game fresh and in a non-fatigued state. The cumulative fatigue caused by three games in nine days makes doing this a very difficult proposition. There are many strategies that players can use to help speed up the process of recovery and I can assure you at Toulon we used every measure possible (I will explain some of the recovery strategies we use in a later post). However sometimes (like last week) you feel like you are fighting a losing battle!

The second problem with such a schedule is player performance. All stakeholders in rugby need the product on the pitch to be of the highest quality possible. After all it is what takes place on the pitch that sells our game. Fatigue, again, does nothing to help performance and is why our training is carefully planned to make sure we arrive at each match fresh and ready to go. While there is no doubt that the games last week were exciting, the level of play was probably not up to the normal standards seen in the Top 14 week in week out. This I believe helps no one in the game.

Leading try and point-scorers in Top 14

In England player welfare is high on the agenda of the Rugby Players Association (RPA) and they lobbied hard to reduce the amount of Sunday to Friday games a couple of years ago. While I am aware that this has been put under pressure recently with the new ESPN television deal I think it's important players have a say in how our game is run. A possible solution for the Top 14 could be to play over a couple of weekends during the Six Nations as already happens in the English premiership. While this may starve the teams and the public of some of the international players I think the standard of the squads in the Top 14 are more than capable of producing quality rugby in their absence.  Perhaps it's time for Provale, the player association in France to take up the issue with French league (LNR) and help all those within the game.

This week sees a return to normality with only one game in the week. We host Agen on Saturday and everyone in the squad will be working hard to make sure we get our first home win of the season. We need a change in fortune so fingers crossed!

A bientot