French professor reveals exactly what high performance in sport is based on

Pierre Dantin has a very simple approach to high performance, a domain in which this 59-year-old professor has become a specialist. Not to be confused with high level, which is more common in the French sporting landscape.

“With high level, you hope to become a better version of yourself, go to the Games or make a Top 14 final. High performance, on the other hand, is about winning”, he explains in the third episode of the BastaShow, available exclusively on the RugbyPassFR YouTube channel.

The pair worked together when Matthieu Bastareaud was playing at Lyon, and then met up again at Toulon.

A close collaborator of Pierre Mignoni (as well as Ugo Mola and other Top 14 coaches), Dantin has successfully instilled his vision of things in the players, enabling them to excel.

Assuming vulnerability to bounce back

Against all odds, even before targeting success, he puts his finger on… failure, vulnerability and the need to assume it, if not accept it.

Dantin even believes that this is the basis of high performance, the very foundation of the bond of trust that should bind a coach to his player and vice versa.

“The problem with high performance in sport is that very often, when you talk about your vulnerabilities, you’re seen as weak, as not ‘suitable’ for the highest level. But not at all! When you talk about your vulnerability, you name your fears. And if you name your fears, we can help you. Helping others to become is about trusting them,” he says.

“The real relationship of trust is talking about your doubts, fears and moments of discomfort. And that should be considered the true beginning of high performance.”

A fresh start

The parallel with the moment the French national team is currently going through is obvious. The quarter-final defeat to South Africa at Rugby World Cup 2023, followed by what has been considered as a humiliation against Ireland in Marseille on the opening day of the Guinness Six Nations Tournament, have left France in a state of self-doubt.

However, between these two international events, the staff and players do not seem to have been able to work on their introspection.

After Rugby World Cup, everyone went home, the staff changed and the players went back out to play, hoping to turn the page quickly. But the wounds have not healed.

“When you win a lot, everyone follows you. But when you start to lose, behind every fan there is a tormentor,” says the professor, known as “coach of coaches” in France.

“You have to learn to live with this new pressure, which is very contemporary.

“Now that the promise is there, you have to create something else, because if you don’t, you’re going to come back to the fears: fear of doing badly, fear of winning, fear of not being up to the job… everything that the French national team has managed to transcend.

“We need to capitalise on everything we’ve learnt and let it serve as a lesson. Let’s transform it quickly and ensure that this start of the Tournament is nothing more than a counter-event.”

The right time to start rebuilding

So, would this be the right time to begin the process of introspection before rebuilding?

Pierre Dantin continues: “You need to be very sincere and authentic, to assume a lot, to say that you haven’t been good everywhere, to be able to name your fears, to name the things you need to improve. There’s a need for interaction and communication with the people who love you. Otherwise, you’re going to distance yourself more and more if there’s a lack of understanding.”

A point that applies equally to the player/coach, coach/supporter and player/supporter relationship, the triptych of rugby. And yet, head-coach Fabien Galthié’s communication seems to be precisely the opposite of what the professor recommends.

On the evening of the narrow 20-16 victory over Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday 10 February, Galthié was full of praise for his team’s game, talking of “perfect content” and “one of our team’s finest victories”, even though it was obvious that France were nowhere near their best, creating a certain amount of confusion in the minds of supporters and observers alike.

This over-enthusiasm threw a smokescreen of congratulations over a perfectible performance, as if words alone could simply make people forget the rest. As in the wake of their elimination from the World Cup, where it was hoped that time would do its work of forgetting.

“What could be more natural than to have doubts to help you progress?”, seems to be the response of Professor Pierre Dantin in the BastaShow, without having the arrogance to judge the work of the XV de France staff.

“You only have to listen to all the champions. They systematically come and talk to you about their doubts and what they’ve done with them, being listened to with kindness and empathy.

“High performance is also built on kindness and empathy, otherwise it wouldn’t be sustainable.”