Coaching Philosophies 101: Castres’ Steven Setephano
What drives Castres Olympique defence coach Steven Setephano
I didn’t plan to kick off Le Rugby proper with a long read, not in the week Fabien Galthie unveils his first 42-player squad for the 2026 Six Nations and the Top 14 returns after the Champions Cup break.
But...
I spoke to Castres Olympique’s defence coach Steven Setephano a couple of days before their historic Champions Cup victory over Munster at Thomond Park for The Irish Examiner.
As a pre-match press conference-adjacent interview, it could easily have been done and dusted in a few minutes. But we soon drifted off-topic, talking around recent past and future games, and rugby in general for well over half an hour.
History’s opinion rarely shifts at a pace faster than continental drift, and certainly not in a sport like rugby. Think Castres Olympique, think — as the Irish Examiner highlighted only this week — a negative, spoiling side.
But, as their correspondent Simon Lewis also mentioned in his match report, the five-time Top 14 champions now have a much more youthful, more expressive, squad than non-French fans have been used to seeing, and coached by a very different and much younger staff, and led since January 2025 by Xavier Sadourny, the third youngest manager in the Top 14.
Defence coach Steven Setephano is one of the longer-serving members of the senior coaching team. He arrived, from Grenoble, at the start of the 2023/24 campaign, under then-head coach Jeremy Davidson, to replace Rory Kockott. Sadourny joined a season later, initially as attack coach, following the departure of David Darricarrere for Brive.
Castres headed to Thomond Park to face 20-time Champions Cup opponents Munster needing something they had never managed in nine previous trips to Limerick: a win.
Until Saturday, only two French sides had ever won there — Toulouse in 2022, and Clermont, with Sadourny a member of the staff, in 2014.
Worse, they had to do the apparently impossible on the back of a second-half hiding at home against Bath. Sadourny told reporters after the 29-31 win, however, that he had sensed the possibility in the week. “We had a good week of training, to be honest,” he said.
“On Monday, we had to recover from the blow we suffered against Bath. On Tuesday, we were still a bit down, but then, on Thursday, we really turned things around.
“I felt that the players were really ‘in it’. In terms of quality, intensity, and even their involvement during the video sessions, I could see they were fired up. It was in their eyes, in their analysis, you could feel the players seize the moment.”
The gameplan was simple. “We had a strategy to stay close to the score for as long as possible,” the manager said. “We knew the match would be decided around the 70th minute, and we were right. The physical aspect counted for a lot.”
Lessons in loss
Setephano had emphasised how important the Bath game had been in the lead-up to Castres’ trip to southwest Ireland. “That game really served us well,” he said. “It opened up a lot of areas that we haven’t really faced against Top 14 sides.
“It was probably the first time I’ve seen an English team not look for tempo, not look for momentum. They cut it. They looked for resets in the scrums. They looked for driving mauls. They plugged the corners, which Finn Russell does really well.
“But when they entered our 22, that’s when they just showed another face. They were really clinical. What they were doing really stressed our defence.
Recognising an issue is not the same as resolving an issue. “Coming in on Monday [after the Bath defeat] was about giving that awareness to the players,” Setephano said. “I know that Xavier has really worked hard on our drivers, our nine and 10 especially, on how we can move through that grey phase, where nothing’s really working out for us.
“How can we really find our game again? What do we need to do? What does our communication look like between the leaders, in the group on the field? How can we control the next action to be able to build phases to get us back into the game?”
Coaching is a rolling maul of day-to-day, match-to-match, season-to-season considerations. Every game delivers something new to consider and work on. Above all, even above rugby’s perennial mot du jour, that requires honesty.
“I'd like to think that we can learn from the game against Gloucester and the games against Edinburgh and Bath,” Setephano said.
“We’ve been able to really look at ourselves as a group and see where we can improve. I thought we showed some really good composure and discipline around what we tried to do against Edinburgh. Then coming back into the Top 14, it’s been a rollercoaster ride.
“We need to be better at controlling moments and every sector plays a part. You can’t have a good defensive lineout that steals ball, if you’re not clinical enough in the scrums. And you can’t miss tackles in defence and have an attack do their job.”
Coaching evolution
Change, development, evolution — and, yes, the dread word learnings — are more than just part of the job. It’s almost all of it. In his near three years at Castres, Setephano has probably seen more than most other coaches in France — perhaps apart from Montpellier’s Benson Stanley, Stade Francais’ Paul Gustard and Morgan Parra, or Lyon’s AB Zondagh.
Unlike the staff turbulence endured by those three sides, Setephano has seen evolution at Stade Pierre Fabre. “There's been more of an adaptation as opposed to looking at how to improve things,” he said. “When I arrived, it was Jeremy Davidson, and he had a different philosophy.
“Xavier [Sadourny] is a bit more open with a ‘just play’ style — like the formation of a French player, he’s come through that, but he’s also worked alongside foreign coaches like Vern Cotter, Jono Gibbs, and Joe Schmidt at Clermont.
“For me, it’s been a real easy adjustment to work with Xavier because he can see that I bring a different flavour to spice things up, so to speak.”
The current coaching set-up suits the New Zealander. “Xavier’s been a bit more open as a manager, which has allowed me to work closely with other coaches and with the inclusion of the two Julians [forwards coach Tastet and assistant attack coach Dumora, who joined the staff on his retirement as a player] who came on board this season, has brought a good freshness to the group.”
Inevitably, the evolution at Castres is not confined to the staff. With one or two exceptions, the players who were around the last time they won the Top 14, in 2018, have retired or moved on.
“We’ve got a relatively young side today,” Setephano said. “When I first arrived, players like Florent Vanverberghe, Theo Chabouni, and Baptiste Cope were just starting out. They’re now playing regularly, and I think that progression over those years has been interesting.
“For me as a coach, it’s been rewarding as well because we’ve had four or five make the French team, or are playing for Italy, so there are some guys who have really developed over these seasons.”
That development of players up to international call-up standard is a source of quiet pride for Setephano. “There’s a sense of accomplishment,” he said. “I’m happy for the player but, I think there’s some validation in the things that you’re doing. And that’s cool because sometimes you're only evaluated on performance, whether you win or lose.
“I get to be part of their story, part of them winning their first jersey for France. I know I’ve played a part in that. It’s not just me — a whole lot of people have invested time in that player, but it’s nice that there’s validation of some of the stuff that you do. Sometimes you just don’t know where you stand as the weeks go on.
“Yes, there are some stats that show you’re defensively doing some good stuff. And then next week, it’s not so good. But by the end of the year it’s validated when a couple of big players move on up.”
Performance standards
There’s a lot of long-term development stuff in there. But, as Setephano said, coaches are almost exclusively judged on performance. So far, this season, so average for Castres Olympique — a side with one of the lower budgets in the Top 14, but who have made a habit of punching well above their weight.
Saturday in Limerick saw them achieve one of their preseason goals: qualify for the knockout phase of the Champions Cup for a second year in a row. Their other goal: finish in the top six of the Top 14 and feature in the post-season play-offs.
At the time of writing, Castres were 10th in the table, on 33 points, five off sixth-place Montpellier, with a trip to Bayonne and a home match against Clermont before the Six Nations break.
There has been no mid-season discussion at Castres about how they should approach the second half of the season. But, for Setephano, “I’d like to think I could help the team continue through the things we need to work on to be able to put out a performance that we can be proud of — a consistent performance week in, week out that lasts 80 minutes.
“How can I find consistency in my defence coaching to be a force for the remainder of the season? That could serve us for what might be in June? We do that right, doors can open up.”
Castres have been on the wrong end of some close games this season. They lost at home by two points to high-flying Pau and Bordeaux. They picked up defensive bonuses — in the Top 14 that means finishing within five points of their opponents — at two more top-six sides, Toulon and Montpellier. For the sake of a single score, that’s a total of four league points instead of 16.
They’re not far off, then. But the two percent margins between victory and defeat are the hardest to achieve. There’s no secret sauce.
“It’s about showing up every week and every day with the mindset of progressing, developing and being honest with ourselves about the areas that we need to work on and prioritising those areas throughout the week, while continuing to work on the force that we have in us.”
Second-half turnaround
Setephano predicted a second-half-of-the-season turnaround, if Castres could — as they later did — spring a shock at Thomond. “A win in Munster could really change our season just like it did last year at Saracens. When there’s a big challenge and we’ve asked everyone to invest 100 percent to get a result, there’s a natural flow afterwards.
“You get momentum through one or two games and the mindset changes. You start to walk a little bit taller, with a bit more confidence, a bit more, you know, swagger to what you’re trying to do. You come onto the field and you’ve got a bit more energy.
“A lot of things can change within a very short time. For the staff, we need to be able to tap into that, and ride that wave.
“Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve really worked hard about identifying and being honest with not only ourselves as coaches, but with the group.
“That discussion has been brewing for a long time, and Bath was a really good game that really exposed our flaws. It highlighted a lot of areas — not only technical and tactical on the field, but also in mindset.”
Mindset. One word. Seven letters. A whole lot of different meanings for different people. Setephano continued: “What does our communication look like in front of the guys? What does it look like in front of the ref?”
“It’s not about winning the ref, or getting them on our side — it’s about showing positive images. If we can control what we want to control, we put ourselves in a good position to be able to keep moving forward.
“The Top 14, the Champions Cup, it’s a hard slog. For coaches as well, it’s a real up and down because we ride the journey with the players.
“Sometimes, when you’re down, we have to step back and go, ‘Hey, keep things simple. What can we work on this week? What do I need to show in front of the group? What does my body language look like in front of the group? Am I giving confidence? Why am I giving the same frustration that they feel?’.”
Age matters, too, he believes. “This generation is a bit more emotional compared to the generation I played with. So I’ve had to really adapt my coaching around that to serve this group, while maintaining a good relationship with the older players, the players that can relate more easily with me because they know the generation I grew up with.”
Coaching cultures
Every coach has their own style, with its foundations on their life and rugby experiences. Setaphano said his methods, the way he presents his coaching, and performs the analysis he needs is different to his colleagues’.
“I’ve had the opportunity to play in New Zealand, Japan and in France. I think that's really helped me be more culturally aware and, with that, I've had to adapt to my language, the way I am in front of certain groups.
“I do a lot of self-development. Being in a French organisation, you have to be adaptable. You’re always on your toes because it is a bit different to what I’m used to in my culture.
“I try to bring a bit of the Anglo-Saxon, mixed with the French way. I did my coaching qualification in France. That gave me a really good sense of their formation and how they do things here.
“It’s more than a difference in coaching style, it's more than a difference in playing styles. It’s a difference in culture. I'm a foreigner in a French organisation and going through my formation in France, it allowed me to really sink my teeth into what they were about.
“And then, stepping back into my own culture, I know what I stand for as a person. That’s allowed me to tap into the two different types of people we have in the club — the foreigners and the French guys. It’s allowed me to tap on both sides, which is an advantage because not too many French coaches would have coached overseas or understand different cultures. They only know France and the people in France.
“But when you live and breathe another culture, you get a sense of what it’s about. Until you’ve lived that and breathed that, you won’t know. I’m fortunate to have lived it and breathed it in my own culture, Japan, and now in France.”
