Here are some tips if you are about to play your first match in your new colors. Start by scoring a hat-trick away from home, get flashed at 38 km/h and revive your team in a match without suspense. This is the recipe that the Englishman Henry Arundell followed. Second best try scorer in the World Cup (7), the supersonic winger played his first match for Racing 92. And in a game where all hope of suspense seemed dead, his hat-trick completely revived his team, allowing them all the same to obtain a precious point which allows them to get back on the podium. The derby against Stade Français, next weekend at Jean-Bouin, would be the ideal opportunity to definitively enter the hearts of Ile-de-France supporters.
What a performance from the Toulon wing third row! Author of fourteen tackles (one miss), the Frenchman was in the oven and the mill. Above all, he was able to stop the Ile-de-France attacks in the heated moments of the game. His scratch in the 79th minute, to stop one of the final offensives by Fickou and his teammates, was celebrated as a victory. While the Toulonnais have had a complicated start to the season, the state of mind of the former Brive player has done his team a lot of good. He also signed an assist on the first try of the match, and he was in the game on the third.
If Pierre Mignoni’s men have been traveling poorly since the start of the season, it’s a completely different story at home. The Rouge et Noir overcame the absence of their French internationals (Ollivon and Villière on vacation) to achieve a prestigious success against the third in the Top 14. A performance that they had not achieved at home in the last two seasons . As a result, in three matches played at Mayol, the Southerners gained plenty of points by winning three times. We will now have to succeed in exporting ourselves to hope to reach the final stages. Next meeting, next Saturday in Clermont.
FLOPS
Benefiting from the return of several of its globalists, and in particular its Tricolores Woki and Fickou, the Racingmen traveled to Toulon with many ambitions. But their first half did not allow them to hope for better than a defeat at Mayol. Undisciplined, missing too many tackles, the Ciel et Blanc allowed their opponents to make the match easy. Despite a first try from Arundell, they returned to the locker room with a deficit of 16 points (23-7 at the break). A delay that their good second half failed to make up for.
Baptiste Serin would almost have deserved to appear in the tops. In his usual style of play, the scrum half scored a trickster try and was in all the right places until his exit (56th). As for Lolesio, he was inspired several times, despite a missed touch at the end of the match. But there was a major problem for the Toulon hinge. Facing the poles, the two scorers managed 4 out of eight kicks. Too little for a match of this level. The 11 points left in play could have cost the Toulonnais dearly, who saw their opponents come dangerously close at the end of the game. Biggar’s absence was felt in Mayol.
Established at full-back, Max Spring was not successful on the Toulon turf. He offered the second try on a plateau to the Rouge et Noir, after being deceived on the rebound and conceding an avoidable touch. He was narrowly caught by Paia’aua in the first half, as he attempted to score a try in the corner. Details which did not allow Racing to win away.
