Le Phare
Vannes preseason training lights a fire across the Brittany coast
There are 57 lighthouses along Brittany’s Atlantic coast. In the original local language, Breton, they are known as tour-tan. Towers of fire.
The département of Finistère has the highest concentration of lighthouses in the world. Some, like La Jument, have become icons. A white tower ringed with a red stone octagon, resisting salt and spray for over a century.
Or Ar-Men, ‘the rock’. 33 metres high and 20km out to sea. Built from granite on a rock frequently submerged by the tide. Its name is evocative of a prayer, a word said in desperation by the men who fought their way through the sea to build it.
But there are less typical lighthouses found further south. In Morbihan, at the centre of a Gulf once raided by Caesar and the Romans, a flame has burned since 1950. But its signal isn't for ships, sailors or safety. It exists to guide lost rugby fans who have strayed too far from the crowded clubs of Occitania and Provence. Its name is Rugbi Klub Gwened. Vannes RFC.
Of the 14 clubs in the 2024/25 Top 14 season, only three lay north of France’s middle line. Two were in Paris, drawing from a city of nearly one-fifth of the nation’s population. The third was in Vannes, home to just 50,000 potential fans.
But the borders are broader than they appear. There are no other professional rugby clubs in Brittany. As a result Vannes has an advantage, it has a chance to convert 3.4m people.
Cleverly it capitalises on this with preseason showcases at local sports clubs throughout the region. Vannes open their compass and follow the N, E, S and O. Ploufragan in the North. Ploërmel in the East and Sarzeau in the South.
And it was Sarzeau where I found myself on a warm Friday morning in the middle of July.
2025 is Vannes’ 75th season. Its 74th, its first ever season in the top flight, ended with relegation back down to ProD2. But despite the results, every game was a sellout.
So it’s no surprise that 500 fans have turned up to watch this warm-up. At ten-minutes to eleven they are already crowding the gated entrance and sat in every seat in the small stand. Two men with kilts and berets covered in rugby pins carry biniou kozh, traditional Breton bagpipes, over their shoulders. Older fans wave black and white flags absent-mindedly whilst kids grubber kick rugby balls into the backs of their parents legs.
This complex usually houses the amateur Sarzeau Football Club1. The pitch is in the middle of a blue running track, which surrounds the grass like a moat. The outer fence is packed with people finding a good viewing point for the next couple of hours of action.
The event is staffed by football volunteers in SFC gear, hoping to benefit from the crowd. The barman serving cidre and Breizh cola2 says he wished they could get as many people to watch a football match during the season. Oddly, there is a gameday atmosphere. There’s the smell of galette-saucisse, hot grilled sausage in a cold buckwheat crêpe. There’s music playing from a DJ booth and a merchandise van sells out of Vannes t-shirts and flags in less than an hour.
A few days before I’d run around this track and witnessed groundsmen grimacing and gesturing in their uniquely French way as they tested out the ground with their shoes. I watched them hammer in a PELOUSE INTERDIT sign and mow the grass down to a neat clean inch.
And now that pitch was ready for the 45 Vannes players working their way back to form. The coaches have already set up trestle tables with GPS tracker vests, laptops, bananas and protein bars. Below them are big containers full of bibs and stacks of multicoloured cones. Then a neat line of Gilbert balls fresh and crisp from the bag. Pumped to burst. The grip ready to be worn down over the next couple of hours.
The players step down from the bus to claps and cheers. They are dressed in blue shirts and blue shorts and greet their waiting coaches with handshakes, hugs, or two light touches on each side of the forehead. The accents are a mix of English, Kiwi and French as they pull on their vests and graze at the snacks.
Chats gives way to instruction as the gentle jogging and stretching begins further away under the posts. Away from the action the crowd eases back into their own routine, chatting and ordering more food and drinks. The football fans comment on the size of the forwards and say that one of the second-rows would be a good goalkeeper, just because he’d take up most of the goal.
But before long boot hits ball and shouts from coaches recapture the crowds’ attention. The slap of new leather on palms and the sound of air escaping from the punctured creases of the tackle bags. The players move seamlessly from scene-to-scene. Lines of four then kick returns then scrummaging and lineouts and back moves. Big games of touch with rotating teams of three. When a team is off the pitch the subs pedal the exercise bike in tired shifts, timed by eager assistant coaches. Between the white lines there are hard angles and heavy scrag tackles that bring players to the ground, which is firm and dry from three weeks of no rain.
After a few hours of this exhausting routine under a strong French sun they join shoulders to form a circle and 45 shadows become one. Shared sweat and words of encouragement are broken with a shout and clap. One by one they trudge across the moat and sign pictures for kids who have crinkled the corners of their posters and chewed the ends of their pen waiting for a chance to catch their eye.
The coaches pickup the cones and linger to talk with what look to be club executives, stood in shirts, gilets and jeans at the edge of the pitch. A few photo-ops, some conversational Franglais and then back into the coach to the d'aucy Park Centre de Performance, for film, physio, and food.
There’s still four weeks to go before the first preseason game against Toulouse, a last run-out against the top tier of the league that will feature some of the world’s best players. The previous two games finished a combined 39-106 in favour of Le Stade, who won their third consecutive Top 14 title even without their talisman Antoine Dupont3. From there, it’s a further fortnight until the first game of the new season, at home against Brive for J1 of an eventual 30 games of rugby.
But Vannes can’t worry about the months ahead just yet. For now it’s about the minutes, hours and days. Today was an impressive display from an organised team. There is no sense that things are being done differently than they were last year. They are holding themselves to a certain standard.
Crucially, the focus this year is no longer about staying alive, keeping their heads above water as they drift in the wake off the coast battered by titans week in and week out. They’re back in control, wanting a return to the top tier of French rugby. Their season in the Top 14 didn’t make a shipwreck out of Vannes.
After all, they were the first club from Brittany to ever reach those heights. So now, the job is to be the first to achieve it twice. 4
Sarzeau compete in Régional 3, the 8th tier of the French football league system.
A popular regional alternative to coca-cola and pepsi. Only found in Brittany.
Dupont, who ruptured his right knee ligament in the Six Nations, won’t be available for the start of Toulouse’s 2025 campaign.
Feature image: “Sunset over Ploumanach Lighthouse” by Maëlick, 16 August 2015, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)