The Espoirs’ forwards coach, Renaud Gely, talks about the good first part of the season for our young Olympians as well as the rest of the championship which is looming.
What is your assessment of this first part of the season?
We had a little hiccup at the start of the championship with this setback against USAP at home on the first day. But subsequently we managed to perform by finishing 1st tied with RC Toulon at the end of the first leg which is very interesting. We can say that the results are positive! It took us a little while to get started for several reasons. There was the Seven which did not allow us to work collectively so we were not ready for the start of the season collectively.
What are your thoughts on this last improved match against MHR?
Beyond this match, this whole block was very interesting with 3 improved victories in 3 matches which allowed us to refuel. I remember the state of mind of the team and the work of the entire group. Our job is to bring each player to the best of their level and there I find that there are a lot of players who were at a very good level on this block. We managed to get almost the entire squad to play. I find that we have a more homogeneous group than last season with a little more character. Although we had a lot of rotation in these 3 block matches, the team’s level did not drop.
How do you plan for this second part of the season?
The boys set goals for themselves. Now we will see if we can maintain the level of play that we had on this last block. It’s almost a shame that there is the break now because we were on a good path and we could have played 2.3 more matches. We will see how the boys will react in this second part of the season and see if we are capable of being as efficient as in the first part.
How can we best manage this holiday break?
We’re not going to manage because everyone is going their own way for the holidays. We will see on January 6 when we will resume if they are able to switch to this recovery. This is the question we ask ourselves. We dare to think that compared to everything I have been able to say about the group and the strength of character of the team, they will go full throttle again.
