TOPS
The South African opening half was the metronome of Racing 92 during the victory against the RCT (20-6) on Sunday for the 18th day of Top 14. Tristan Tedder immediately put his team on the right track with his nice kick over the top to Maxime Baudonne who came to score a try at the end of the line to open the scoring (5-0, 2nd). Even if he missed his first two kicks, the Racing n°10 subsequently recovered well with a precision which made it possible to punish the numerous errors of the Toulonnais. Often well inspired in his transmissions, he succeeded in 93% of his passes. In the race he was not to be outdone either with his 64 meters gained and his three crossings.
Solid from start to finish, the entire Racing 92 team worked hard in defense to achieve a precious success during this 18th day. Faced with an RCT who tried everything, Stuart Lancaster’s men showed real collective strength to repel all Toulon’s attempts in this meeting. Never pierced, the Ile-de-France defense was solid in repelling the balls carried in several situations close to its in-goal. At the end of the match where the opposing offensives multiplied, the Racingmen did not make a mistake and even prevented their opponents from flattening by throwing themselves under the ball during yet another ball carried by the Varois. During this meeting they only missed 22 tackles out of the 132 attempted. Unsinkable, the Ile-de-France residents are going on a two-week break with a renewed dynamic that will need to be maintained to end this season in style.
FLOPS
In a meeting where they had to win to stay in contact with the top 6, the Varois made the task far too complicated. Faced with a perfectly established defense, the RCT players completely foiled. With repeated inaccuracies, victory quickly slipped away from the Toulon camp. The visitors returned far too many balls to the Racingmen who did not ask for so much to quietly create a sufficient lead to resist at the end of the match. By coming up against this Racing team, Melvyn Jaminet’s teammates got annoyed and left Nanterre with a 4th defeat in their last 5 matches.
Finally back from injury (knee), the French winger had to bring speed and solutions to the RCT game. But Gabin Villière’s contribution was far too weak. In the first half, he touched and used too few balls and we will especially remember his lost duel against Christian Wade which sent him on his butt. In the second act, the Frenchman tried to be more present in attack but he also came up against the Ile-de-France defense who had decided to close access to his end zone this Sunday evening. On a nice inspiration from Danglot who hits a kick to follow, he is unable to beat Wade once again who grabs the leather to deprive him of a try for his return. While he thought of scoring a try earlier in this meeting, it was refused because of an unfair play by Ribbans which had opened the door for him.