Smile on his face, voice at ease and the complexion of a youngster, Yoann Laousse Azpiazu has barely changed. Yet at 34, and during the last close season, the full-back, then at Mont-de-Marsan, announced the end of his professional career. News that surprised the Mont-de-Marsan supporters but which felt entirely logical to the former Dax player as well.
Now thriving in his second career, still in rugby, Laousse Azpiazu agreed to open up at length to Ruck Zone about life after playing. He also looks back on his new career as an amateur player, in Régionale 3, with the club that produced him, Parentis-en-Born (Landes), which he loves so much. A treat to read.
RUCK ZONE: How is this life after your professional career going?
YOANN LAOUSSE AZPIAZU: I am getting into the rhythm of a fairly normal life, simpler than before, even if I am still in the rugby world. In any case, I can enjoy my children in a different way, I keep slightly more conventional hours and I travel a bit less, for the time being. Let’s say I am taking it pretty well and I am very happy with what I am doing. Either way, it suits me very well.
Had you anticipated and prepared for this sporting retirement?
As it happens, I get asked a lot whether I miss it or whether I have any regrets about stopping. It is true that I still felt good physically, I think I could have done at least one more season. But I had prepared for life after rugby. Mentally, I was ready to stop and I had surely been ready for a little while. I was no longer enjoying myself on the pitch, so from there the decision was very simple. The opportunity the club offered me, namely a second career that appealed to me and that fitted my professional plans for the future, I knew how to take it. I jumped on it when it came along and that is why today I have no regrets. I do not miss a thing. My life right now suits me completely. I am enjoying myself again in a way I did not necessarily as a player over the last few months of my career and that, I think, is the most important thing.
You mention a lack of enjoyment. What was the problem? The demands?
The demands obviously, getting up in the morning, going to training, performing… I am someone who is very demanding of myself, so I am just as demanding of others. Maybe I was also a little bit fed up with carrying on in that routine, with that mental wear and tear. I did 14 years in the professional game, I was very rarely injured, so I strung together a lot of matches and training sessions… I had come to the end of something. Last year I was in an environment that was not very positive. We were losing a lot of matches, and relations internally were not the best they could have been. I was coming back from injury, I had given myself every means of getting back to a very good level.
I did not manage it, so for me that is also a failure. A whole set of things meant the decision was not a hard one to take. At the start I still wanted to carry on, to do one more year, to not finish on that, to go again for a season with a proper pre-season, on a new project, at least for a full season. All while knowing that it could be my last season. I wanted to guide the young players who were there, because we had quality youngsters, especially in my position. I was not offered that opportunity.
What is your second career?
I am the lead manager of the Crabos team at Mont-de-Marsan. I am employed full-time within the club’s association. I look after the young ones and I also work across different areas. In schools first of all, whether that is primary schools or the rugby section at the Lycée Despiau. I also work with the rugby school, I run the Crabos training sessions and I am involved in the academy as well. It is fascinating. I am starting again from scratch. When I am with the rugby school, obviously we talk less about tactics, technique or strategy. Either way, for me it is very instructive and it is what I wanted.
It was important to start again where it all began. The club gave me these different roles and I take them on with pleasure. I will admit that it is not always very restful… When you do two hours of school work on a Friday afternoon, it is not necessarily my favourite job. I like being in contact with youngsters who do not necessarily know rugby, trying to give them a taste for this sport. In my work with the Crabos, I invest as much as I possibly can. So I make mistakes but I learn. I am training myself up little by little.
For your second career, was rugby the obvious choice?
Originally I studied environmental science. I have a two-year degree in that field. It was something I enjoyed, except that when you start your career as a rugby player, you fall into a mould where everybody also talks about property investment, business deals… I invested quite a bit myself as well. In any case, I was able to make the most of the rugby side in various investments. Then I started giving the association a hand six or seven years ago. Before Covid. And I liked it. I have always been about passing things on, ever since I was small, because my dad ran a sailing school in Parentis, and at 16 I took my national instructor’s qualification. I was a sailing instructor for 4 seasons. I already had that, and in fact it more or less became obvious afterwards. I took my DE two years ago at the CREPS in Toulouse, and that confirmed the idea that I wanted to move closer to it.
You have gone back to the club that produced you, Parentis-en-Born, in Régionale 3. Did the players believe you would really come?
Until I had set foot at training and taken out my licence, I think it was all hot air to them (smiles). Even though they know me very well and I am someone who keeps his word, and is straight about it, it seemed a bit far-fetched for them to believe it. They came round to seeing me turn up at training and take out my licence. Last year, the club started again from scratch. They had come out of a merger with Labouheyre. Parentis was the lower-placed club at the time they did the merger. The deal was that, in the event of a split, it was the team lowest down at the time of the merger that had to start again from scratch. So in this case, that was Parentis.
When I saw that my professional career might be coming to an end, I first talked about it at home. I mentioned it just like that, and then in fact I said to myself ‘why not, if they have all put their boots back on this year, with a bit of luck I can help them stay on for one more season’
Yoann Laousse-Azpiazu
So the club decided to split for various reasons last summer, and all my mates who had stopped three or four years ago pulled the overalls back on. Some took over the club presidency, others are coaching and others have put their boots back on. It made me happy because the club was also starting again as its own entity, with a very good rugby school that it never lost. We often celebrate it for the players it produces, but the club decided to start again with local people, people from Parentis, who really wanted to put the work in. When I saw that my professional career might be coming to an end, I first talked about it at home. I mentioned it just like that, and then in fact I said to myself ‘why not, if they have all put their boots back on this year, with a bit of luck I can help them stay on for one more season’. Then they had a very good season last year. That also made me want to share the adventure with them, for the club, because I knew very well that my coming might put the club in the spotlight, that it would help them hold on to players who might not have stayed, because they had the level to play higher.
It was a decision full of meaning. So far I have only played two matches. The idea was that there should be no constraints on my side, and none on theirs either, because I knew I could not train much. Nor did I want to turn up and do one training session, play, or sometimes not train and play. It is going very well but they do not really need me to win. They play very well. There is a fine group of youngsters, a fine core of pure Parentis lads aged between 20 and 25. It is a pleasure to watch them play, and above all to see them enjoying themselves every weekend on the pitch. They are hugely committed during the week, there are around 30 lads at every training session. Seeing the club like this again is really good.
What do you make of that level? You have gone from Pro D2 to Régionale 3, eight divisions apart…
Physically, obviously, the lads are not conditioned. You get everything. There are players who are pretty decent but I find these are teams that do play. You find teams that try to do things properly. There is a bit of every style… Some play one pass at a time, playing close to the rucks and then there are the others who try to move the ball, who try to get some structure too. No, it is not bad at all!
What are your goals with Parentis?
To get back to the level the club should be at, maybe Régionale 1. I went to watch Yann Brethous (former Stade Montois captain, ed.) the other day, who was playing against Roquefort with Grenade (Régionale 2). There is a level between the two, and physically already, there is a step up to make. That said, Parentis is still a club that has always played in those categories. We are a little behind, it will take time to get to that level, There is also the geography, which means we do not necessarily attract people. We have the Bassin not far away, with much more powerful clubs, and we are a bit out of the way. We do still have a club that is very well structured, with people who are hugely committed.
We have a big school complex next door, so there is a link there too, it is developing very well, so the idea is to go up quickly, at least to R2 and if possible R1, and then to settle the club at those levels. And why not push at the edge of Fédérale 3 in time. Me coming here is also about giving them a hand with the development and the rebuilding the club can go through. The club is healthy, everyone is enjoying themselves, and there are results too.
Bringing people in, does that also mean calling up Baptiste Serin? He came through at Parentis too, didn’t he?
Well, Baptiste Serin is obviously in another world (laughs). He reckons he will still be playing rugby at 38. He is mad! (Laughs). Baptiste is not finished yet, he is in his prime, but I will let him take his time to finish a very fine career, and we will speak again down the line. I think that between now and then, a lot of things will happen. I know he would love so much to be part of the adventure, and to play with us. What is certain is that I will no longer be on the pitch if it ever happens.
Did he react to your return to the club? Did he wind you up about it?
He was like a « pec » (a madman, ed.). He is hugely attached to our club and our town. He would love to share all that but he has a status. He is a bit younger too. He would love so much for us to play together again but it will surely be for his testimonial, nothing else.
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