Pau obviously hopes to score a blow against Perpignan. The players’ mission will be to remain consistent for 80 minutes, after two bad experiences in Clermont and La Rochelle, resulting in an avalanche of points conceded.
The Palois will travel to Perpignan with an idea in mind. How could it be otherwise? The Béarnais won two games out of two at home and they won twice away. But it’s true, it was with big teams aiming for the Top 6. Why not recognize that the USAP seems less scary than the two aforementioned clubs? The Palois won last season in Catalonia. The Catalans started the Top 14 badly before recovering against Clermont last week, but they lost two major forwards, Posolo Tuilagi and Jacobus Van Tonder.
Sébastien Piqueronies knows his rugby too well to assert unreasonable ambitions. “I want to say that in Perpignan, it doesn’t matter the score or the result. But I hope that we will present a consistent team and that we valiantly defend our skin there. We know it will be hard.” He also added during the conversation that he hoped “don’t be ridiculous there like on the last two trips.”
Defense dependent on attack
At the moment, everyone thought of the defense identified as the weak point of the Sectioneven during the first home victory against Bayonne (51-29). This problem had been identified and Pau found itself with the worst defense after three matches. The match against Stade Français had corrected this impression a little (only one try conceded). Before the meeting, Sébastien Piqueronies had decreed an “emergency defense plan” before adding: “It was ridiculous because it didn’t mean much. Defense cannot be uncorrelated from attack and transition phases.”
We needed explanations, Sébastien Piqueronies gave them to us this week. “I wanted to say that if we analyze our La Rochelle match precisely, we realize that six of the eight tries conceded came from one of our possessions. Before talking about defense, we must ask ourselves how we attack: intelligently or not to avoid defending in certain situations. If we make a clean and precise crossing, and we lose possession, we can blame the defense for having difficulty getting back into balance. But we must see that it is the loss of the ball which determines poor defense, a question of choice or isolation. But implied, we took few attempts in defending curtain against curtain. Clearly, we made too many mistakes in the midfield, which led to penalties and sessions in our 22. We lost too many balls offensive in the 40-40 zone which made us suffer turnovers at the end of the line which are difficult to defend.”
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Top 14 – Brown judo belt, opening half and revelation of the year: the portrait of Théo Attissogbe, the back of Pau
To complete all this, the Section manager organized a two-day mini-course in Hagetmau (Landes) to concentrate the work of a whole week and leave three days of rest for his men (Sunday, Monday and Thursday). “I believe in recovery and freshness.” concludes Sébastien Piqueronies.
