Toulon was a little better at everything, all the time. I saw a team that made better use of the kicking game, more aggressive on the rucks, more opportunistic, which rarely entered the 22m but which slammed every time. I saw a very well organized team on kickoff receptions.
We also felt the conquest was in great difficulty in the first half, even if the entry of Auradou did you a lot of good on the touchline afterwards.
There is one team clearly better than the other in scrum. A team clearly better than the other in touch in the first half. We managed to regulate after the break, but it's not enough even if we come back to 4 points. For me, there were two matches. The one up to 24-20 (51st), and behind, I have difficulty accepting and understanding this last quarter of an hour. We are not able to float, and we sink.
You also targeted discipline. However, you are penalized 14 times and receive two cards…
14 penalties is a lot against this opponent. Two or three of them in the 40/40 zone clearly set us back. It's terrible, it's a burden that we find difficult to bear. Two yellow cards once again… We're already having trouble at 15. This amplifies the score, makes the mission too difficult.
“Indiscipline is starting to seriously handicap us, like our scrum”
Top 14. Still submerged in Mayol, Pau knows music
Defeated for the ninth time in a row in Toulon and still looking for its first success away from home, Pau ended up sinking at the end of the match this Saturday (56-25). A setback likely to push him into the red zone
These are areas that you have already identified and which have already cost you points…
Indiscipline is starting to seriously handicap us, like our scrum. But we come back to 24-20. I maintain and persist: this Section team has capabilities, talent. She can be opportunistic too, but in the 4-5 key moments of the match, it was the Toulonnais who brilliantly put theirs in the back. This means that there is one team better than the other in its rugby beliefs. Is this surprising? All the work undertaken by the Toulon club, the good results recorded on the European scene, as well as in the Top 14… Ultimately, it is logical that one team is more confident than the other.
You write a very nice first-hand essay. Does this give you hope about your talent and abilities?
There are many things that give me hope. The quality of my players, the talent of these players, our collective ability to achieve things with great efficiency. We played in the right spaces with good timing. Now, the real key is that we have difficulty maintaining this in difficulty, and over time. Today's match shows us that being efficient or brilliant for a few minutes does not prevent you from taking 50.
Is it in this type of match that the lack of bench depth linked to your injuries penalizes you even more?
In terms of explanations – even if I have no excuses and I will tolerate none – our number of injuries influences our forms of training, our rotations. Toulon obviously managed the return from South Africa better than us, with the same group that traveled. This 48-hour preparation is also an aggravating phenomenon. But I repeat to you that we have no excuse because we have done quality preparation. We optimized what needed to be. The effectiveness, at times, on the ground, has proven this to us. I found a team that was sometimes cohesive.
Does this defeat add pressure to the pressure before the Vannes reception?
