Special Envoy to San Sebastian
“People were defeatist about us because we hadn’t performed very well away from home this season. But the final stages is the story of a day, anything can happen. We are not favourites. We know that Stade Rochelais is once again coming out of a fantastic European epic. So everyone sees them in the final and champion of France. It’s up to us to show that we deserve to be there. We will have to play our game to the fullest. If we look at them, the score we all know: it will be 40 points!”
“Everyone knows the qualities of the Rochelais. There are tough matchup areas against them, because they have a huge pack and very strong three-quarters. The confrontation zone on the rucks will be very important, for me it will be the key to the match. If we can’t get the balls out quickly, it will be the game of the Maritimes. We are much better when the balls are fast.
“It had been pretty terrible. I remember the last defeat (6-36 at Matmut Atlantique in Bordeaux, editor’s note). Heads were lowered, there was a sense of shame. We had been walked on in front of 40,000 people… But we are not afraid to play against them. We want to challenge them and show that we can compete. That’s how we approached things this week. If we think of all our defeats, we will take 40 points, I repeat myself … Above all, we must not have an inferiority complex in relation to them.
“It is always an important thing to chain the semi-finals, we install Bordeaux-Bègles in the French championship. It’s a strong message that we send to the other teams in the championship. We learned a lot from the previous semi-finals. Against Toulouse, we had been a little too shy (21-24, in 2021). Against Montpellier, we were perhaps a little too sure of ourselves (10-19, in 2022). After these defeats, we were very frustrated. We took a long time to recover, the summers had not been fabulous. We have to take the measure of this game. Sometimes we listen a little too much to what we are told: we feel like we don’t deserve to be there. We need to believe ! Even if the piece will be very hard this time again.
