This Wednesday, the Netflix platform launches its series devoted to the Six Nations Tournament. It's a documentary that gives the cameras plenty of space, including the dressing rooms. It's enough to plunge rugby into a mini existential crisis: do we have to show everything in order to please everyone?
Desire was stronger than fantasy. Using the same recipe and the same levers as for its successful series devoted to Formula 1 or the Tour de France, Netflix is yet unveiling another secret. This time, it smells of Dolpic and tough talk. The dressing room of the VI Nations has opened its doors to the cameras and microphones of the American giant. In its quest for information, the public wants to know everything, and even see everything. And they are even prepared to pay for it.
It's a bit of a blow for the oval traditionalists, who are sometimes nostalgic for a not-so-distant past. These guardians of the temple are former players or coaches. Sometimes both, like Pierre Berbizier (56 caps). Finalist in the 1987 World Cup as a player, semi-finalist in 1995 as coach, he knows this magical place by heart. Supernatural even. "For the general public, the dressing room remains a mystery. Seeing normal people go into this place, this cage, and seeing them come out like lions. Then to return to that place, and become normal people again. So you wonder what goes on in there to transform people completely".
Olivier Magne (89 caps) strikes the same tone: "In the history of rugby, the dressing room has always been a secret place. And that secrecy has given rise to tales, legends... sometimes things that never happened there! It has generated very strong images and beliefs". Imagination, an infinite source of belief".
This thirst for reality raises some simple questions: should everything be shown? Doesn't part of the magic lie in the invisible? That's Pierre Berbizier's opinion: "I think you have to keep the mystery in the dressing room. I've always accepted people. But I reduced it to very few. Because it has to be earned. Once the public has seen everything, it will demystify the place. On the contrary, I think you have to make people dream. Let them imagine what can happen there. You have to feed the fantasy. Living it is sometimes a disappointment".
Opening the dressing room to others: fear of what?
Rugby is a lascivious art, where things are suggested rather than shown. "I'm prepared to make people imagine things: to tell them what goes on there, explains Pierre Berbizier. But I don't like to show it. The dressing room has become a set and for me, it should remain a place where things happen".
So what is it about the dressing room that bothers the players so much and gives rise to such mistrust? One word quickly comes to mind: shamelessness. "There are things that belong only to the players. Having shared important moments with team-mates, one look is enough to remind us of those moments that belong to us. They're ours alone," says Olivier Magne. "In the dressing room, you have complete privacy. It's where you meet up with your partners, your brothers in arms, and it's there that you really lay yourself bare. I wouldn't have wanted those moments to be public," he concludes.
Richard Dourthe (31 caps for the French national team) agrees: "You can't know everything, there's no such thing. Pierre Berbizier said it very well: you have to earn it. The dressing room is a man's life. It's intimate. It's family life. And in family life there are arguments, in the life of a couple, there are arguments. And you don't want to go public with that".
Behaviour influenced by cameras?
Nostalgic, a little. But certainly not old-fashioned. Richard Dourthe readily admits that "media coverage is still very important for our sport. Because people can see that rugby is not a simple sport. It's a very tactical and strategic sport". Olivier Magne, for his part, thinks "it's rather good to show certain things. I'm even in favour of it. But wanting to open up to the media and the general public doesn't mean showing everything. Rugby and sport in general should have places like the dressing room. I'd like us to open up something that isn't the real dressing room. A sort of pre-changing room... a vestibule (laughs)!
Because even among the glorious old-timers, no one questions the need for media coverage, the growing popularity, the need to please and satisfy a demanding public. But everyone has their own ideas. For Richard Dourthe, a finalist at the 1999 World Cup, there is a fine line. Showing things, why not. But without adding sound to this special place. It's a fine line, but one that he's trying to clarify: "What's said in the dressing room should stay there. As far as I'm concerned, there's no problem with cameras. But not the sound. Because images let the imagination work. Sound doesn't. He continues: "In all combat sports, there's bound to be over-motivation and irritation. I don't know a rugby player who walks onto a pitch and isn't scared. But you have to find ways of transforming that apprehension into courage. And sometimes that means saying things that can't be said elsewhere and that would be very badly perceived by civil society".
Behind this mistrust lies another fear. That of the staging. Exaggerated headphones and shouting, false-sounding speeches and a few fake looks. Olivier Magne gives us his view of the "inside" camera: "Introducing the camera doesn't allow us to be completely naked. Even if you end up forgetting about the camera, it's not completely absent. Your behaviour, your actions, everything is also directed by the image you project. The players are very careful, and I think that certain things happen or don't happen because of the presence of this camera in the dressing room".
An observer who becomes a player in spite of himself. Pierre Berbizier is convinced: "We're preparing for a fight. As soon as you have an outside eye, with a camera, they are no longer turned inwards. When you look at the guys, their attitudes are not the same".
A new job, a place to find
Andréa Lebourgeois is one of those famous "intruders". At just over 60 metres tall, she knows how to make herself even smaller to capture moments of life and moments of truth within the women's French national team. But always with modesty. "No, there's no voyeurism. I know what I'm shooting, and I know that there are things I'm not going to put in the report because it's too intimate". She has become more aware of her profession. "You don't have to show everything to show what's going on within the French national team. Andréa adds, "My job is to make sure they don't see me. It's when they stop paying attention to me that I say to myself, 'That's it, you're part of the team'. It's being at the heart of the action without participating".
It was probably this sensitivity that helped Andréa quickly find her place. You have to strike a delicate balance between discretion and omnipresence. "I don't have a big camera, I have a small camera. Besides, I'm small and I'm a girl in a girl's dressing room. I make myself forgotten. Physically, it's difficult to find my place in the changing room, to find the place where I'm going to be the least visible".
Like a player, it takes time to find your feet. And sometimes even their place. "In the first match against Italy, people were watching me. But after that first week, I felt that the girls were more at ease. And then in New Zealand, for the chat, I was crouched down in the middle, they were all around me, and at no point did I feel out of place. I really feel that today they've totally understood where I belong and what I'm doing.
No one will be able to say whether unreal magic or naked truth should prevail. Or whether rugby should live through this questioning in suffering or in joy. The fact remains that the first issue of this new series will be available from 24 January. A first episode that, like the questions it raises, will inevitably lead to others.
