Top 14: after USAP’s victory against Montpellier, Tom Ecochard can have a taste for a job well done

He returned, at the 22^e minute, much earlier than expected. Tom Ecochard, the USAP scrum half who started the match on the bench, had to replace, prematurely, Sadek Deghmache who was injured in the knee. The staff’s strategy was clear: use the punch and liveliness of the Vallespir man at the start of the match then the calm and sense of rhythm of the Narbonne player at the end of the match. But the hazards changed the situation.

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Ecochard returned early and finally brought a lot of serenity to a team which was suffering. In these situations, the scrum half knows how to be reassuring. This is what he did once again. While Perpignan took on water, he took matters into his own hands. And even the cardboard release of Jake McIntyre (23^e), just after his arrival on the field did not destabilize him. He alone played the role of hinge for ten minutes.

A playmaker

For a long time Tom Ecochard has only worn the armband on rare occasions. But on the pitch, in the heart of the game, he is still the leader. So in the first half, when USAP, for the first time, managed to go to the Montpellier camp, it was he who dictated the game. On the two penalties obtained, he chose to delay and to take the key. To keep the clock running, but also to keep the USAP away from its half of the field which it had seen too much of until then.

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If he missed the transformation on Dubois’ try (34^e), a few seconds before McIntyre returned to the pitch, he also regularly gave a little breathing room to the Catalans who played the entire first half against the wind. And he even once again almost scored a try, playing on the short side, in a mouse hole. In the second period, everything was simpler for the USAP, which finally became conquerors.

Behind a powerful pack, an untenable Oviedo, a Tuilagi who toppled mountains several times, Ecochard did Ecochard. Clean and efficient. He held the game without overplaying. Exactly what the Catalans needed to get back in front and then hold on to victory. At the final whistle, he fell into the arms of his teammates. Then he led his men in front of the Twickenham stand, filled with Catalans. Then all that was left to do was enjoy the good taste of a job well done.