Top 14: why USAP can't find its offensive game that made it shine last season

Since the start of the season, USAP has not been as flamboyant offensively. With only 17 tries scored and 187 points scored in 10 matches, it is the worst attack in the Top 14. It is also worse than at the same time last season (26 tries and 202 points). There had been a “timid” start before letting go and finishing the year third best attack in terms of tries (80), behind Toulouse and Bordeaux-Bègles. An average of 3.1 tries and 24.4 points scored per match, but above all a flamboyant game. So, how can we explain these difficulties in the offensive sector since the start of the season?

Lack of stability due to injuries

Unfortunately, since September, the USAP has been facing a very (too) full infirmary. If it had started the season with very few unavailable elements, it has been around fifteen absent for two months. And not least. For the most part, they are either game leaders, tactical leaders, or line captains. But above all, important players in the Catalan gaming system. Which inevitably causes this team to lose bonding and automatisms. “Ils (the coaches, Editor’s note) are constantly restructuring a team from weekend to weekend. And to be good offensively, you still have to have a well-established common frame of referencedeciphers Jean-Philippe Grandclaude, USAP center between 2004 and 2012. And it's a complicated constant since the start of the season because, to have an anchored common reference, you have to be able to have a base of players who play regularly together and who find success together. And there, despite some successes at home and good away matches, from one weekend to the next, we are still scratching our heads.”

Because indeed, in more than half of the matches, the staff found themselves deprived of hooker Ignacio Ruiz, right pillar Nemo Roelofse, second lines Mathieu Tanguy and Posolo Tuilagi, third lines Patrick Sobela and Jacobus van Tonder, number 8 Joaquín Oviedo, and centers Alivereti Duguivalu and Apisai Naqalevu. Only big ball carriers capable of making differences, “breaking” defenses and exhausting opponents. This also translates into a lack of density on the bench, and this inability to be consistent for 80 minutes in a match. Which notably cost points to Bayonne, Castres and Racing 92. “When USAP finished well over the last two seasons, it was because it had a base of players who still formed a big foundation of this team. This year, it is clear that there are absentees from key positions I am thinking of the axis of the second line which revolved around. (Mathieu) Tanguy and Posolo (Website). Today, we don't have them. I think of the absence of the two Argentinians (Ruiz et Oviedo) which, to me, are a huge foundation in the USAP game today.”

Does the absence of Jake McIntyre weigh more than expected?

But perhaps there is one absence that weighs more than another. Number 10 Jake McIntyre, the most used player last season (25 matches, 23 starts), seems to be missing. If he doesn't have the best kicking game in the world, he has a vision and a style of play that fits perfectly with the game plan proposed by Azéma and Marty. And his absence, although he did not have a very good start to the season, is felt. He is the custodian of the USAP game. And above all he has blind trust from his staff. “He has a special relationship with David (Marty) on the knowledge of the game, the intentions, and on the exchanges they have between them in relation to all that”explained manager Franck Azéma before the start of the season.

“He lacks the experience of the team that he already has. He is as well anchored in the game as the staff tries to put in placeconfirms Grandclaude. In a team, there is a need for strong benchmarks, and he is one of them. He is the one who sets a certain tempo on the matches and the turn they take.” This long absence of Jake McIntyre, injured on September 28 (ruptured pectoral muscle) and who should return in January, also propelled Antoine Aucagne to the forefront. The former Aurillac player was then replaced at the back, leaving the number 10 to Tommaso Allan, who was in trouble with a knee. And there is now the emergence of young Gabin Kretchmann (18 years old). Lots of changes, upheavals. But a lack of stability, obviously unintentional, which prevents this team from fully expressing itself.