Sunday evening (9:05 p.m.), Montpellier hosts Toulon at the GGL Stadium, at the end of the 12th day of the Top 14. This will be an opportunity for Bernard Laporte and Pierre Mignoni to meet again. In a joint interview given to our colleagues from Midi Olympique, the new rugby director of the MHR and the manager of the RCT spoke of their shared memories during four seasons spent in the Var between 2011 and 2015, glorious years for the club with a hat-trick in Champions Cup (2013, 2014, 2015) and a Brennus in 2014. They notably returned to the famous rants of the man who was nicknamed “Bernie the crazy”.

“We had an incredible team, with world-class players in all positions, who were doubled or even tripled… They nevertheless needed a guide,” recalls Pierre Mignoni. (…) No one would have claimed to teach Jonny Wilkinson or Matt Giteau how to kick. On the other hand, they wanted to know in which direction we were going. We gave them this direction and on weeks when things were not going well, Bernard would wake everyone up. Because he could have woken up the dead at the time… But we also had great competitors on this team. And when they lit up, these guys…”

And the current manager of the club with a hint of lily of the valley continues: “At first, the players were a little surprised by the power of Bernard’s speeches, yes. It’s like when you put your fingers in the socket, actually… It shakes… One day, Jonny Wilkinson even came to me and said: “Pierre, that’s not possible! No one has ever spoken to me like Bernard does!” With Jacques (Delmas), we went behind to round the corners. (he pauses) I don’t know if it would work today. The players are different.

For his part, Bernard Laporte, who recently arrived at Montpellier, 2022 French champion but current bottom of the Top 14, tells Midol: “In Montpellier, I talk to the players from time to time. There are sometimes unsympathetic speeches. But if I speak to them like this, it’s because I respect them. Because I want to see them beautiful and good. I never yelled for the sake of yelling. (In Toulon) we had a duty, with Pierre (Mignoni) and Jacques (Delmas), to make them understand that they were no longer the players they were four years earlier but that they had to be. become again for this club. In Montpellier, the context is not the same. It’s a team that has doubts. I can’t behave with them like I did in the past, with other teams.

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