The logic was respected this Saturday evening on Marcel Deflandre’s lawn with a big La Rochelle victory over Aviron bayonnais (26-6). Stade Rochelais had however slightly rotated its team by fielding young people and being deprived of Grégory Aldritt and Will Skelton. But on the ground, the locals were able to show themselves to be superior but above all effective and pragmatic on the many faults Bayonnaises.
Started with great intensity, the match quickly turned in favor of Ronan O’Gara’s men. Superior in the physical challenge, the Rochelais still had to wait until the 18th minute to open the scoring before taking off thanks to Thomas Berjon’s try (22′), after a lot of work from his forwards.
If the Bayonnais have not been unworthy, in particular by displaying clear offensive intentions, they will have made too many errors and faults to hope to bring back even one point from this trip. With 15 penalties and two yellow cards received, difficult to exist against such a team. Especially since against them despite the few young players on the pitch, it was experience that spoke with an intractable defense and dominant forwards.
The Rochelais managed the whole meeting to make the hole little by little and end up detaching themselves largely with the test of Rémi Picquette (70 ‘), synonymous with the superiority of the Yellow and Black forwards this Saturday evening. Only small regret of the evening, the absence of offensive bonuses, despite several interesting situations at the end of the match, when all the points are important in the quest for 2nd place. With this victory, La Rochelle regains a five-point lead over Stade Français (3rd) while Bayonne may have said goodbye to the top 6 for good.