Pablo Lemoine: “We train different players: some will be leaders on the field and others outside”

Pablo Lemoine (Montevideo, 1975) is a benchmark of South American rugby. The Uruguayan, who will lead the Cóndores to their first World Cup, was also the architect of the project that theBrought Uruguay back to a planetary event after 12 years of drought. These two processes, together with the brief but successful stint in the German national team, make him a leader in an activity that has grown exponentially in recent years in the country.

“One of the things that makes me happiest is knowing that at the end of this project there will be people who will have the ability to be a coach or president of the new Federation,” he explains. in a conversation he has with La Tercera de Montevideo.

How do you define your leadership?

My family and the club where I started, Montevideo Cricket, gave me different values ​​that shaped my leadership. My dad, who ran a restaurant, had do-type leadership; my mother, with her role of accompaniment, education, support. My brother, at the time, had to take over from my father and lead the family. They were very strong examples. In my club, the person counts much more than the result, maybe you don’t win as much, but you train a lot. This also applies. There is also my wife, my children, see all the efforts they make to put me in the right place. All of this makes me realize that I can’t be wrong, because it would be very unfair to demand so much effort from those around me and then fail.

Was it difficult to apply it in the Cóndores?

I knew it was going to be super difficult to start this path to victory. It was understandable that you first had to play the role of directing, of pushing. In my club, they taught us a lot that recognition is not so important, that the cause comes first. The first years in Chile were like that, very lonely, with little appreciation for what we were doing. Then came the pandemic.

Do you distribute leadership or do you take full responsibility?

I have people who work in all areas, who are suitable, specialists, but I am the leader, because I believe I have the ability to give everyone their role and motivate them to fulfill it. At the same time, I like to know what’s going on, not because I interfere in other people’s work, because I’m very respectful, but to keep track of the process. I can be much more conductive as the process evolves, but at the beginning my demand for time is gigantic.

It must be very exhausting…

I work hours a day, I sleep little, but I also like to make other people work. I have 25 people next to me watching, I ask everyone a big request. I don’t impose ideas, I think it also helps the staff, the people around me, to believe in me. I like everyone to feel recognized, I don’t like to shout and take my picture.

How to involve them in your project?

When you want to make a real change, you have to do it on all sides. I join in these general evolutions of the project, in this search that everything plays a role for the final objective. We never talk about the Condors at the World Cup, we talk about improving high performance in Chile. Everything was going in this direction and fortunately the first consequence we had was the World Cup. Now we are waiting for other consequences, because we are only in the process. We hope that in two or three years, we will start to have other effects, at VII, in the youth, we think that we will train interesting players.

Is it difficult to convey this message of the process rather than the result?

There are 20 countries in the World Cup, if getting there is not a victory… especially since the departure of Chile. Sometimes it’s hard to visualize it, because everyone understands winning as winning the World Cup, but nobody understands that the process is already winning, because there are more than 100 countries playing rugby and we we’re at the top. I like to see it that way, because otherwise it’s a race against non-conformism. At some point, we’re going to have to realize that we have to celebrate the wins that have come and not stay with the losses that are yet to come, because otherwise it’s a race against non-compliance.

What is not negotiable?

The way to lose is that you truly have the ability to put your full potential, all of your effort into achieving the goal. There is no need to negotiate the image we give. I love that the team comes out and can honestly look each other in the eye and say we gave it our all, but in the situation we’re in today, it didn’t give us anything. In 2019 we lost against Romania and Spain, because at that time we were neither physically nor tactically nor with the experience to win, but what we showed is what allowed us to keep moving forward. My role as a leader is to make it clear that the most important thing is not to negotiate the delivery that is displayed on the ground.

Has leadership within rugby changed over the years?

Before, when a team didn’t win, it was a lack of attitude, of desire. It was the easy path that the managers usually took for not having given this team the structures, the chances to train, to have a good preparation. Today we understood that the process you give to the player is the key. The mental preparation, the food, the comfort to be able to work. There is an understanding of the parts of management and staff that need to be invested in these things. It was understood that things have a process and you have to be ready to change things, often to lead is to change.

Do leaders find it difficult to accept their mistakes and change?

This impressed me a lot when I arrived in Chile. There were a number of constant mistakes and there was never an accountability, perhaps out of fear of accepting responsibility. I’ve always told them to take responsibility for what they say and do, because it gives them the opportunity to improve it, to fix it. When I’m wrong, I’m the first to raise my hand, because I think it’s the most honest way to complete a project. It is essential to recognize the error and seek the solution.

What are the worst mistakes a leader can make?

Imposing mistakes happens often. There’s something wrong, but since I’m the boss, it’s the same. It seems silly to me to impose an error for the simple fact of showing that they are leaders. Another problem is not listening, coming to a project with a script and saying it’s done. You must investigate and listen before imposing this script. When I started working with Chile, the first thing I did was to travel three weeks in the country to meet certain personalities of Chilean rugby: secretaries, pitchers, former players, coaches. At the end of these interviews, I had a clear idea of ​​what we needed. In many areas we started from scratch, but I also realized that there were others with foundations and potential. The leader must be ready to listen, not just hear, because these are different things.

Have you had any sports personalities that you have influenced to come up with this method?

I always saw Marcello Calandra (former Uruguayan player) as an example of a person. He is my reference, because I saw that the guy could train, work, take care of others, be a good partner, create things. He was the first president of URU (Uruguay Rugby Union) who hired me to start the process of change. He gave me all the tools. Maybe I’m not trained so much by rugby players, even though I had very good coaches. I think I have a bit of all of that, but I have a lot more training in references as people. I learned from all my coaches. Nick Mallett, Bob Dwyer or Fabien Galthié, who are people who have been at the best level, world champions, but I don’t want to be one of them, because it seems very important to me to differentiate the idol from the reference and I don’t have any idols

Was it difficult for you to implement these ideas in Chile?

You have to do a good analysis of the places you are going to. If at that time I had had high intensity training, like the ones we do now, the answer would have been negative, because we did not have that intensity. It is a question of not wanting to impose a format, but of adapting it to what Chile was like at that time. I spoke a lot with the players, because if you don’t know where you are, it’s very difficult. That you make a mistake in the plan you have chosen for these players is indeed a failure, because it means that you do not know who you are training. The worst thing for a coach is not knowing who his players are, what their customs are, what they like, what they don’t like, where they come from. It all depends on what program you are going to sell later, because sometimes we are sellers and they buy from you or they don’t buy from you. If they don’t buy you, unfortunately you leave quickly, you have no chance.

Now that you know your players, who do you see with the leadership to follow your path?

We train different players. Some are going to be leaders on the field as coaches and some are going to be leaders off the field. Perhaps in this team is the future president of the Federation. If there is something certain in high performance, it is that it is not only built on the pitch, there is a very important part that is outside. You have to make sure that the next managers know what high performance is, like someone has to know development, women’s rugby or the business side. We don’t train a future Pablo Lemoine, because it doesn’t work. To give an example, Nicolás Herreros is a player who is already training and he has to manage like Nico, I hope I can give him something, but he is going to be the coach, obviously knowing that there are things that are not negotiated at the highest performance, that is to say the work, the training, the effort. In this generation, there are many who are already in formation. Francisco Urroz is at Old Reds; Ignacio Silva has been involved in our development projects for two years now; Augusto Sarmiento trains at Country and our juniors, there are a number of players who are involved in high performance and it looks to me like that’s what we’re going to generate. I will leave one day and there will be coaches, physical trainers, video analysts. One of the things that makes me happiest is knowing that in the end we will have people who will have the capacity to be the coach or the president of the new Federation.