After two defeats in a row, Stade Toulouse will want to recover when they host Clermont. Ugo Mola looked back on his team’s start to the season, but also on the new rules put in place by World Rugby.
You declared after the defeat at Castres that the team was in its place. What is missing to regain the confidence of last year?
I believe that in life, when you chase what’s past, it’s rare that you catch up with it. So it’s better to focus on how rather than what happened. I want to once again denigrate the performance of Stade Toulouse, but we must also focus on the performances of the opponents we had, namely Bordeaux and Castres. With two different profiles, they knew how to find solutions. So our margin for progress is to be able to adapt, something that we undoubtedly did better in the past. But our leitmotif, in any case the pillars of the construction of our group for several years, is despite everything to adapt, to match circumstances, to refereeing, to an opponent, to conditions, and perhaps gain a little more serenity and enthusiasm around that. We all saw that it caused problems for teams other than us, and that we have to be able to adapt quickly rather than complaining afterwards, because it’s too late.
You said, after the defeat against UBB, that this defeat was not necessarily to displease you. The one against Castres, does it bother you a little more?
If it only bothers Ugo Mola, ultimately, I will deal with it myself (laughs). I don’t have the problem that we experienced after the titles in 2019 or 2021, where we had difficulty restarting a form of continuity in our rugby. I tell myself that we had already won a little in this area. But you also have to accept that the other teams work well. The difference perhaps between the two matches is that I think that the first 50 minutes, or at least the first 47 minutes in Castres, are made to win outside. In any case, you have the ingredients to compete with a formidable team. The only thing is that it lacked this little bit of adaptation, despite a deficient sector. But rugby is made up of deficient sectors. It’s rare the day when you have all sectors, the touchline, your scrum, your carried balls, your defense, your offensive game, which perform. The problem is that perhaps once again, in the recent past, we were able to adapt more quickly and rectify the situation. There, unfortunately, that was not the case. But I also want to congratulate Castres, who were able to deprive us of the ball for almost 20-25 minutes. And like all teams, without balls, we become ordinary.
Your pack was quite feverish in Castres. Do you think that, from now on, your adversaries will target this sector more?
The game before is not just about the scrum, fortunately. In the match in Castres, we were rather efficient on carried balls and in particular in scoring. Rugby is made up of sectors which falter and which are sometimes efficient, sometimes deficient. In this case, it was the scrum, a collective exercise, in Castres. This is a sector on which we have worked. I don’t think that the scrum at Stade Toulousain against the CO is the one that will evolve over the weeks and months to come. For this to remain an accident, we must rectify the situation quickly.
How did you feel about your group this week after these two consecutive defeats?
Nobody likes to lose. In the last 15 games of last season, we lost twice (three in reality, Editor’s note). Obviously, when we have two defeats in five matches, we have already used up our quota. The level of tension is not just caused by the staff. But our group is quite lucid on this. I repeat it often, victories are often lies. But defeats are also rich in lessons, in things that we may have underestimated. The need we currently have is in the content. I wasn’t satisfied with the first three victories, even if they were interesting from an accounting perspective. However, the content is our judge of the peace and it does not live up to what we decided to put. The higher we raise our content level, the more associated results we have, that’s obvious. So it’s up to us to bring up the content, to act where we can while remaining focused on ourselves.
This Toulouse-Clermont should mark the return of Antoine Dupont. What do you expect from him?
Antoine, through his performances, no longer needs to be introduced. But in addition to not needing to be presented, it is the 10 or 15% extra that he gives to all his partners through the trust he generates. This thing should not be underestimated. Having Antoine come back is obviously a very good thing for all of us.
Also read:
Top 14 – What Dupont’s return to Toulouse can change
Is the case of its management, its physical and mental freshness, one of the big issues that awaits you in the coming months?
That of Antoine and that of the others. With an eleven-month season, we know that the physical, physiological and psychological impact of our years is relatively heavy to manage. But this is valid for a young guy as well as for a more seasoned boy. The luck we have with Antoine and his gang is that they are boys who manage their asides rather well, who do not pollute themselves or at least little with external requests and who remain passionate boys. through their sport. But be careful not to focus too much on management. The beginnings of our wanderings on content are perhaps linked to wanting to rely too much on this management. Before managing, let’s win the matches. Last year, we were made to look like brilliant guys when we did the double. We haven’t gotten any dumber this year. But we must not be in management mode when it has not started. Six days is just the beginning. A lot of things are going to happen, and the injuries and the performances will mean that some of them and Antoine among them will have to be managed, or not.
How do you judge Joshua Brennan’s performances at the start of the season?
He’s a boy who’s been with us for a few seasons. In the maturation of a Stade Toulouse player, we know that we have a number of weeks, months, years for him to reach a level which allows him to play more frequently. Joshua is coming off a fairly remarkable season last year, notably with impacts on important matches. We are in the logical continuation of its evolution and progression. Obviously he’s a boy who matters to us because he’s a kid from the club. He arrived very early with his dad and his family. It’s always nice to have a kid from the club who is thriving in your team even if he still has a lot of room for improvement. Being able to play both positions perhaps gave him one more string to his bow.
Icon Sport – Sandra Ruhaut
World Rugby communicated on the new rules it wanted to put in place. What is your view on these new rules?
There is a primary desire which is to generate more spectacle, and therefore this requires the ability to make the teams even more ambitious, more playful and more complete. The rules are supposed to go like this. We have always quickly taken the turn to circumvent a piece of the rule, like what we do in the Top 14 when we have the famous substitutions for tactical injuries where it has become additional coaching. The 20-minute red card is a clear mistake for me. If you make a mistake that deserves a red card, but you allow a player to come in for you, that poses a philosophical problem for me. We cannot ask a team to be as disciplined as possible and still give them a wild card. It is rather this dichotomy that there may be between the proposed rules. Our team sport is perhaps one of the sports which has seen its rules evolve the most in 20-30 years with many adjustments depending on the championships. If we managed to have the same rules from one championship to another, in our competitions, that wouldn’t be bad. We see the difficulty that it also represents for the refereeing body to adapt to the different directives, in particular those of World Rugby.
