We met Chantal Ruidavets, the new president of the Marlins de Toulon XIII Métropole, who expresses her choice and plans for the club.
Hello Chantal, can you introduce yourself?
My name is Chantal Ruidavets, I live and work in Toulon but I was born and I lived a long time in Perpignan.
I belong to a family of treizistes since my brother Christophe, former player of XIII Catalan, is leader of the club of Toulon XIII since its creation and is also member of the steering committee of the FFR XIII. My father Gérard was a leader for 25 years in the XIII Catalan and president of Barcarès XIII. The XIII runs therefore in my veins since I was very small, having grown on the banks of the Gilbert Brutus stadium in Perpignan.
How did you become president of Toulon?
I have been following the activity and results of the club for a long time. Also, when my brother told me that Laurent Gavarri wanted to resign, we spent a lot of time discussing the possibilities of taking over the club. I met other members of the association, we built a project and after reflection, I finally decided to apply.
What are your first structural goals as president? And longer-term goals?
Our club project, established over 4 seasons, revolves around 2 major and complementary objectives.
The first, which we called "Marlins Elite", focused on sports performance, aims to make Marlins Toulon a major team of the elite of French rugby league. This first season is reflected in targeted recruitment and, above all, the strengthening of supervision with the arrival of Justin Murphy, a new fitness trainer and the signing of an agreement with the sports medicine center. Toulon hospital center for performance monitoring.
The second objective, called "Marlins from 7 to 77 years old" is more focused on education and sport health / well-being for all. It's about being able to offer a sport offer to all age groups, from 7 years old and under at the rugby school, to the oldest of us via the SILVER XIII activity, going through the quadra or fifties with the activities FIT XIII and TOUCH XIII.
This is an ambitious but realistic project because the club has solid foundations, a good reputation and institutional and private partners who are ready to follow us.
Why did you choose to work with Justin Murphy?
The analysis of the club and its performances revealed two major weaknesses.
The first is that we have high quality players who do not have treizist culture. The second is that if the club wants to evolve into Elite 1, it must become professional both at the locker room and in its general operation.
Justin Murphy is the right person to help us fix these weaknesses. He is a reference in the middle of the XIII, having played in the biggest championships on the planet treiziste, and he has all the skills to make our good rugby players very good rugby league players.
His knowledge of the major professional clubs will also be valuable to us to evolve structurally our club towards the professionalism and the high level.
Where are you from recruitment?
We have expanded our team with young players who already have good experience of the XIII. We are waiting to take stock of the workforce with Justin Murphy but most of our recruitment is done.
What are the sporting goals for this season?
This year is a year of transition and construction. Moreover, it's only our second season in Elite 2. So if we qualify for the finals it will already be a good result.
Dimitri Falatko
https://treizemondial.fr/chantal-ruidavets-le-xiii-coule-dans-mes-veines/
