Top 14 – Grégory Patat (Bayonne): “My team likes challenges”

How do you analyze the canon start?
To avoid dwelling on the past, we had to start strong. That’s what I told the players. Observers can read into the future. Others read into the past. Staying in the past is never good. You had to be present from the start. Today, we started our match well, we were serious, we won our collisions. The idea was to gain the territory. We know, from experience, that by playing very high against Stade Rochelais, it is much simpler. If we analyze our first period, we are weakened by two uncontrolled camp outings. That was the watchword. We score on our highlights at the start of the match and in this style of match, we must not waste the opportunities. It was pretty positive.

Despite Lucas Paulos’ yellow card in the first half, you don’t take any points. Is this a strong sign at this moment of the match?
Exactly. Firstly, the game plan was followed to the letter. Secondly, we had the ability not to take points when we were under pressure and, in particular, on this yellow card, after the first or second uncontrolled exit from the camp. We then find ourselves defending our line and it is in difficult moments that we see the character of the team. It was pretty positive. We know the density of the La Rochelle team and the departure of our five could have put us in a little more trouble, on carried balls or rucks.

You took La Rochelle on physical density. Isn’t that surprising?
It’s only the sixth day. We knew that we were going to host a team with confidence and in this Top 14, it is never very good to have too much confidence. It’s a very homogeneous championship from first to thirteenth or fourteenth place. One day’s reality is not the next day’s reality. Yes, we were surprised because we managed to keep going, to undermine the Rochelais on collisions. I found that the Rochelais had poor “body language”, after taking tests. Their heads were down, that’s not their habit. We knew how to keep the pressure on. If we take tests on their high points, it can redistribute the cards, but we were resilient in those moments.

You often have the solution when facing La Rochelle. How do you explain it?
My team likes challenges. When there is a strategy that goes so well, when we manage to play far from our line, it’s easier. Facing this team, we knew that if we were not invited into collisions, we were not going to exist. The players came away frustrated from the collisions in Bordeaux. The people of Bordeaux, if we look at their analysis, found that they had been put under pressure on this. It felt pretty good that we were frustrated. We knew that the rucks were going to be essential to set up our game. We should not play in the 40-40 zone. La Rochelle is the yellow wall. The spaces are very restricted, it’s difficult to move them and when you play in the 40-40 zone, you concede penalties which allow the team opposite to come into your camp. That’s what we really didn’t want to do.

Also read:
Top 14. Report. How Rowing Bayonnais ended the curse of Anoeta

You passed 37 points to La Rochelle, which also reflects a desire to move the ball…
This is the characteristic of Bayonne: being focused on attacking and unstructured play. We managed to win the turnover balls and we are very interesting when this situational reading game comes. You see that we have difficulty increasing the playing time when our launches are structured. In disorder, we have players who love it and who react quickly. In the second half, we wanted to wait for the Rochelais to discover themselves to better counter them. I regret this indiscipline in the second half, where we were whistled quite a bit. I think we have 13 penalties compared to 8 for them.

Don’t you feel like you’ve won a little more than a match based on the history you had with this stadium?
Yes, completely. The players made this moment their own. At the end, when you see the songs, the communion with the public, you say to yourself it’s good, we can come back to it.