A fireworks display that ends badly. At the end of one of the most spectacular matches in the history of the Champions Cup with twelve tries scored, Union Bordeaux-Bègles – which was deprived last Saturday of its opener Matthieu Jalibert and its winger Damian Penaud – was taken out from the quarter-finals, in Chaban-Delmas, by the Harlequins (41-42).
Scrum half Maxime Lucu had the winning conversion at the end of his foot, but he missed it. Difficult to incriminate him as he had previously delivered a full match. The reasons for this setback can be found elsewhere: a failed start to the match (two tries conceded in ten minutes) which forced UBB to chase the score for a long time and, more problematically, the Bordeaux forwards who were largely dominated in conquest .
“We didn’t have a disgusting match but we had a match which is far from the best level when you want to enter the four best European teams,” noted Bordeaux manager Yannick Bru lucidly. This competition has this ability to throw huge pies in your face because you were too average.” The UBB knows what it still has to work on for the end of the season.
If the strike force of its attack line is impressive (Jalibert, Penaud, Depoortère, Bielle-Biarrey, Moefana, Buros), it is in front that the Bordeaux club will have to struggle to be able to compete with teams of the caliber of Toulouse or La Rochelle. “We have to roll up our sleeves for this second project that is the Top 14. We will see if we are big boys to remobilize ourselves,” warns Yannick Bru.
Because his team is connected, this season, to alternating current. Between mid-November and mid-January, President Laurent Marti’s team impressed with its attacking rugby, stringing together eight straight wins in all competitions, with successful group matches in the Champions Cup against Connacht, Bristol and Saracens.
But the machine then stalled in the absence of the internationals selected for the Six Nations Tournament. As a reward for its success and recognition of its talents, UBB has become the second club supplying international players for the French XV. Since then, Bordeaux-Bègles has been unable to string together two victories in a row.
It is on this point that Yannick Bru tried to tickle his players before the European quarter-final. “If we are the Bordeaux-Bègles team that I have known since the start of the year, we should have a shit match. A blow up, a blow down, a good match against Toulouse, a catastrophic match in Lyon, a peak of emotion (against Saracens), so, normally, we should do something disgusting on Saturday, ”had- he throws.
This Sunday, the Bordelais, still sixth in the Top 14 but under threat from Pau and Castres, must get back on track. And it is Clermont, who are coming off a superb performance against Ulster in the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup, who are traveling to Chaban-Delmas. A shot up this time? Yannick Bru believes in it: “The slap we take sends us back to work, in all humility. But that doesn’t erase everything good we did in this competition. It doesn’t erase the trust we have in each other.”