After a nice win against Racing and a good but frustrating defensive bonus point brought back from Toulon, Castres must confirm by taking care of its end of matches.
Above all, let’s not overdramatize: with five points taken in two games, the CO’s start to the season is positive, especially since the team showed a very good state of mind and an interesting level of play in its first two outings, to the point of making the Toulon armada doubt seventy-eight minutes during last week at Mayol. The problem? It is that the Tarnais did not know how to control their end of the match, weighed down by chronic indiscipline (19 penalties conceded) and a yellow card received by Gauthier Maravat, forcing the CO to finish the match with a fatal numerical inferiority.
Extrapolating a little, it is possible to see that the end of the match had not been entirely to the advantage of the Tarnais during the opening of the season at Pierre-Fabre. As a reminder, the Tarnais had taken a significant advantage during the first twenty minutes of the second half. (led 14-13 at half-time, they had gone ahead and had a +12 to manage in the 72nd, Editor’s note), before completely cracking and seeing the Racingmen take the lead again in the 78th minute. It then took a double or quits action and a final exploit from the Botitu – Ambadiang duo to save the Castres homeland and to attenuate in the euphoria of victory, the diffuse impression of this poorly controlled end of match.
Against Usap, a team that will (already) have a lot at stake at Pierre-Fabre after its two opening defeats, the challenge will therefore be to succeed in gaining consistency and not squandering the work accomplished earlier in the match. “It’s true that our ends of matches are rather tense at the moment, concedes the third row of the CO, Baptiste Delaporte. It cost us a big scare against Racing 92 and three points against Toulon. We need to become more mature in our management and be less lax in the final moments. A match lasts eighty minutes or even a little more and we need to be more consistent.”
The “hunters” hunted
The Tarn third line also puts forward another hypothesis to explain these drops in performance: “Last year, it was the beginning of matches that caused us problems. We were quickly behind and were in the shoes of the “hunter”. Now, we are the “hunted” and we have to learn to manage it. We must not be afraid of winning. We have to prove to ourselves that we are strong enough and cool-headed enough to hold the scores.”
Delaporte knows that Usap will be a very dangerous team on Saturday: “Perpignan will clearly want to sign their first victory of the season at our place, warns the player. They are a team with big ball carriers, X factors and a very active scrum-half at the edge of the rucks. They will come and attack us and will want to start their season.”
When entering the pitch, the Tarnais will be well advised to remember that last season, Usap came to beat CO on their pitch. So be careful!
