Dominated in the forward fight during the last two matches it had to play this season, the Union Bordeaux-Bègles must progress in the collective fight, if it wishes to one day experience another outcome, in the final…
From afar, this Bordeaux-Beglais team ultimately reminds us of Leinster before Joe Schmidt and which, until the austere Kiwi took over the Dublin franchise, so frequently failed in the quarter-finals or semi-finals of Champions Cup. There was then, on the Ballsbridge side, a pack of forwards of honest quality but incommensurate with what embodied elsewhere the sixteen-legged monster of Munster, a team then invincible.
There was also, behind this efficient but not very rough pack, a prodigious three-quarter line where Jonathan Sexton, Brian O’Driscoll, Felipe Contepomi, Isa Nacewa or Shane Horgan created the most delirious play launches on the old continent. What are we getting at, exactly?
Over the last two weeks, at a time when matches are getting tougher and are decided above all in the collective fight, Union Bordeaux-Bègles, which has the best three-quarter line in the Top 14, was however too soft to respond to the harshness of Stade Français in the semi-final and then the roughness of Toulouse the following week. “On the conquest, conceded Yannick Bru on Friday evening, on a Indeed blown hot and cold this year. In this sense, this match against Toulouse was a magnifying glass, especially on the sidelines. […] For all this, I apologize to our supporters who have given so much, throughout the season.”
As such, Laurent Marti’s club obviously has mitigating circumstances and in Marseille, the cornerstone of his pack (Ben Tameifuna) mourned the mobility of his shoulder when the pillar of the Blues, Sipili Falatea, is still treating a sore knee. “Which other team in the championship can say that it is playing without its two best right pillars?”had precisely said the Bordeaux sports boss at Matmut Atlantique, shortly after his thing was gutted by the pink soldiers.
Matiu, Gray, Perchaud…
If Union Bordeaux-Bègles wants to reach the same level of competition in a few months and compete against the biggest packs of forwards in the championship (here, we will mention Toulon, Paris, La Rochelle and Toulouse), it must therefore get its act together. If UBB wants to give itself the right to complete the first title of a club that is ultimately still very young – contemporary Bordeaux has in fact nothing in common with CABBG, French champion in 1991, which cyclically gathered 3000 guys at Musard – it has the duty to take a step forward in touch and in the scrum.
To this end, Yannick Bru and his staff have recruited several interesting profiles, with a view to the 2024-2025 season: already, the Scottish international Jonny Gray should give the Bordeaux team, in the groupings, a savagery that they have so far lacked: it remains to be seen in what state of form he will arrive in Gironde, the giant from Exeter having just come out of a serious knee injury.
The very promising Matis Perchaud, whose departure to the great Satan of Bordeaux broke Philippe Tayeb’s heart, arrives in Gironde to finally explode at the highest level and prove that despite his size as a three-quarter center, he knows how to hold a scrum. As for the number 8 of Biarritz Olympique Temo Matiu, who Jean-Baptiste Aldigé was selling to us again this weekend as a potential international, his mission will be to give Tevita Tatafu a breather, author of a magnificent season but which he finished on his knees. Can’t wait for tomorrow?
