Having arrived from Stade Rochelais to gain playing time last season, Léo Aouf had had few opportunities to show himself. The fault was a series of injuries. Now free of his physical problems, the pillar is fully involved in this new exercise and is looking forward to the trip to Nevers.
The results are quite satisfactory at the start of the season. How do you feel?
Collectively we have worked well since the summer preparation. I think we are all enjoying ourselves. We still have a lot of things to work on but we are building ourselves little by little. It is rather pleasant for everyone.
What should we remember from this recent victory against Biarritz?
Last season, in this kind of situation, I don’t know if we would have won the match. This time we did. We were lucky that it fell on our side with Biarritz making a big mistake. It gave us a match ball but it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. The fact of capitalizing after that is a good thing for the group.
This end of the match was quite crazy with a final decisive scrum for the USM, as a pillar, we imagine that you would have necessarily wanted to play it?
We would like to play all the scrums (smile). But in the front row we can rarely do the 80 minutes. It’s true that when the match is played in the last moments these are always important moments, especially when it’s the forwards who give the team the victory. It’s fun!
It’s up to us to continue to build our matches correctly.
Last season you had little playing time due to several injuries. How did you personally experience it?
In terms of integration, everything went well even though I was away from the field. It was a very frustrating season because I came to Montauban with the aim of getting playing time. It was quite the opposite. I had never experienced a series of injuries like that. Mentally, it’s tough but it’s also our job. The important thing is to quickly remobilise for the deadlines we may have; despite everything, we have to raise our heads and look forward. Today it’s paying off so it feels good.
This match against Nevers is already the last of the block, how are you approaching this last trip?
For the moment we have played two good matches at home. On the Provence Rugby side we are not far behind but we collapse a little towards the end of the match which gives them the opportunity to come back. It is up to us to continue to build our matches correctly and to show that away we can be serious over 80 minutes to go for the victory.
A Nevers team that has often been a difficult opponent to understand for USM…
It’s a team that’s been struggling a bit at the start of the season but they’ve played some very good teams. Nevers remains Nevers… It’s not because they’ve lost three out of four games that we should cheapen this match or think that it will be easy. Travelling to Nevers will be tough no matter what.
Are you leaving in the same frame of mind as in Aix-en-Provence?
I think that if we do the opposite, we will be received! We will have to do even better. We will necessarily have to raise the cursor higher because from now on our opponents will be waiting for us.
How to stand out from Nevers?
With the essentials of rugby! (Laughs). We will have to be good up front as for all matches. We will have to be clean and erase the indiscipline. I think that if we manage to sort that out, we will not be far from the mark.
Also read: Winner at the end, Montauban never had its last word
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