Au revoir Tours, Ireland's oasis of calm at this World Cup

Letter from Tours: IRFU staff were packing up two giant articulated trucks Wednesday afternoon, clearing out their gear from the Stade de la Chambrerie complex

WATCHING ON: IRFU Performance Director David Nucifora watches Ireland train at Complexe de la Chambrerie in Tours. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Sad to say, we must be on our way… 

The Ireland bandwagon is moving on to pastures new and it will be a bittersweet exit from Tours Thursday morning as the World Cup squad and its accompanying press pack depart the Loire Valley city they have called home since the last day of August.

IRFU staff were packing up two giant articulated trucks Wednesday afternoon, clearing out their gear from the Stade de la Chambrerie complex that has been their training base since arriving in France five weeks ago.

Journalists, players, and tour management alike have all fallen in love with the atmosphere, architecture, cuisine, history, and natural splendour few knew much about before their arrival and there were mixed emotions about having to leave.

For while they are bound for the big smoke of Paris and the excitement of what is hoped will be a series of high-stakes matches leading all the way to the Webb Ellis Cup, there will also be regret at bidding adieu to a town that has served them and us particularly well at this tournament.

For all the exertion, adventure and Irish sporting success of match weekends in Bordeaux, Nantes, and the French capital itself these past weeks, the return train journey back to Tours on a Sunday felt like a return to familiarity and comfort, an oasis of calm away from the lunacy, noise, and throng of a global tournament.

Assistant coach Mike Catt summed up the mood from inside the camp this week, saying: "It's been brilliant and the best thing about being in Tours, for us, is that we actually didn't have a game in Tours and you felt like you were coming home each time.

"We went to Nantes, Bordeaux, Paris and each time we came back in, the Chateau Belmont where we've been staying is fantastic and Tours is a beautiful place. It's got a great vibe about it, it's been great."

For those of us who stayed in the centre of Tours and got to know it well, it was a town that kept on giving, showing its best sides from a variety of angles assisted by a summer that was only just reaching its end as the bags were being packed.

And it was not just the obvious markers that set it apart.

For as enjoyable as the restaurants of a variety of cuisines and alfresco dining were, as beautiful as the chateaux that sat atop the valley and its great river below, and as delicious as its wines taste, it was the less obvious features that will linger in the memory.

Like the singing tram stop announcements on the commute to the daily Ireland press conferences at La Chambrerie and the genuine interest expressed at where we were from and why we were here, quickly followed by the oft-repeated wishes for a France-Ireland final 23 days hence.

It all came together in idyllic fashion this Monday past in the form of a first almost laptop-less day in five weeks, courtesy of Marieke Gourdin at Touraine Loire Valley Tourism, who packed us off with a picnic of local produce in a flat-bottomed boat that drifted along the river in the afternoon sunshine.

As the goat’s cheese was unwrapped, the saucisson sliced, and the rillettes des Tours spread across crusty hunks of baguette, that boat moved at such a leisurely pace as will be sorely missed by the time we arrive in Paris Thursday afternoon, to reintroduce ourselves to the World Cup, to big city life, including the local bed bugs which appear to have mobilised there in the last few days.

On reflection, perhaps it was the lack of rugby that made Tours so memorable. For this is not a heartland of the sport and yet the people extended such warmth and hospitality to its temporary residents that this correspondent is sincerely hoping UCT Tours, the town’s most prominent rugby club, makes a rapid rise from Federale 2, France’s fourth tier and plants itself firmly in the Champions Cup qualification reckoning before too long. It would be a shame not to get a chance to come back.

Au revoir Tours, á bientôt.