The young Usap opener delivered an interesting match for his first steps at the highest level.
Pierre-Fabre is definitely a land of firsts for the openers this season. After the neo-Racingman Owen Farrell who discovered the Top 14 in Castres on the occasion of the first day, it is Antoine Aucagne who started at this level in the small Tarn cauldron. And if, at the height of his 21 years, Antoine Aucagne (nephew of David), does not yet have the experience or the track record of his illustrious English elder, he has perfectly succeeded in his baptism of fire in the Top 14.
He first knew how to tame the context, not necessarily easy, of having to lead a Perpignan team in search of its first away victory, in a noisy and lively stadium, where the “good-natured” pressure of the public made more than one before him thwart. He then had to master the climatic conditions which clearly did not give the goal scorers a good place.
In this, Antoine Aucagne was particularly effective, with a 100% in front of the posts. We also saw him take risks in the animation and often be wrong in his footwork. His manager, Franck Azéma, seemed satisfied with the performance of his young fly-half: “Antoine played his game, he was perfectly there in the commitment. He got to the level of the team. He was lucky in his penalty shootouts… There you go, for his first steps in a difficult context, against a tough and rough team, with wind, he did well! “
Also read: Écochard: “Starting a season well, finally…”
An unfavorable turn of the match
Like his entire team, the young fly-half (a little) lost the thread at the end of the second half, with fatigue helping. Above all, we felt that Perpignan had not really recovered from the try that had been refused to them in the continuity of Castres’ second achievement.
On a ball carried into the Tarn in-goal area by Vakhtang Jintcharadze, the referee of the match, Mr. Marbot, considered that the winning structure had previously split into two. The Perpignan team would never really recover from this decision and would spend the rest of the match digging in (rather well, actually) in defense, until the siren when the CO would manage to force them to give in.
Coming out of this new disappointment, the third in three outings, Usap is last in the Top 14 but has two home games (Clermont then Pau) to finally get its season underway.
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