“It’s difficult to explain,” says Willie Du Plessis

How can you explain this first quarter of an hour which costs you the match?

It sucks. Before the match, we had targeted our key factors: conquest, defense, discipline. And we weren’t good at it at all. We lost the conquest. In terms of discipline, we finished with around fifteen penalties against us (including ten after only thirty minutes of play). Defensively, we weren’t good in the first half. All of this is expensive.

After 15 minutes, you were down 13-0 with a try conceded and a yellow card conceded… How did you experience it?

It wasn’t easy. We made a series of mistakes. We didn’t have the collective strength to move towards the positive after that. We knew that it was a resumption match (after a two-week break following the victory against Brive) but that is no excuse for this Friday. We tried to talk to each other to release the negative, but we didn’t succeed. There, we have to return to Mont-de-Marsan, watch the video and switch very quickly because we have a match coming up against Nevers. I think we can learn a lot from this match in Nice.

What do you think should definitely not be reproduced?

Our basis, conquest, must be much better. We must have barely won two or three touches. We have to win our scrums, too. And in terms of discipline, when we have decisions from the referee against us, we have to move on very quickly and not stay focused on the negative, which is what we did this evening.

Did you look down on the people of Nice?

Not necessarily, 50-50 yes and no. We knew it wouldn’t be easy to come here. The level of Pro D2 this year is still very high. All the teams are strong. If you don’t get your fundamentals right, you lose the match.

“With all the respect I have for Nice, it’s normal not to approach the match in the same way against a promoted team as against a big team like Brive”

How to explain that with practically the same players as against Brive, you show two totally different faces?

It’s difficult to explain. I think it’s the 50% that made us look down on Nice. With all the respect I have for Nice, it’s normal not to approach the match in the same way against a promoted team as against a big team like Brive. But we know, all the teams in Pro D2 are solid, especially Nice.

Is the reaction in the second half, with three tries and the defensive bonus acquired in added time, a satisfaction?

Yes of course. We weren’t good so taking the bonus still means that our systems can work. It’s good to take this bonus point, but we’re really not happy with the performance we gave. It wasn’t what we came for. It was a match that we really missed.

A word on the return of Yoann Laousse-Azpiazu, nine months after his rupture of the cruciate ligaments of one knee in January?

I’m very happy for him. He’s a guy I’ve known for years. I played against him and this is my fourth year with him. He is an experienced player so that will give confidence to the whole group. It wasn’t easy for him to be on the sidelines for more than nine months. He was missed a lot, yes, and at the same time it gave other players the opportunity to show themselves. I think our band grew up on that. But when he’s not there, you feel him. His experience in difficult times is important.