Aware of the limits currently displayed by his team, Ugo Mola made an extremely lucid observation.
If we have to recognize one thing about Ugo Mola over the past month, it is the constant in his comments regarding the level of his team. Even after the three inaugural victories, the manager warned: “Despite the results, I know that our current rugby is far from what we are capable of doing.” Obviously, he would have preferred to be wrong, but the last two meetings proved him right. “I think we are simply in our place”therefore launched the technician on Saturday evening in the bowels of the Pierre-Fabre stadium, after the defeat in Castres, following that against Union Bordeaux-Bègles at home.
And he insisted on the duty of awareness: “Everyone talks to us about what we have been but the important thing is that we are going to become. And for the moment, what we have been does not nourish us enough to be a team that plays the first roles in the championship.” This has the merit of clarity, when he has already placed his men face to face with their responsibilities throughout last week. If the reaction was there in the Tarn, notably with a good first period, its players nevertheless completely lost track afterwards. Symbol of a training which still lacks mastery.
Above all, Toulouse were too fragile in certain fundamental sectors, starting with the closed scrum. Impossible to get out of it in these conditions? “Particularly against Castres who knew how to make the effort in this sectorreplies Mola. The melee was obviously too feverish to win away. Throughout the second half, especially the twenty minutes between the 50th and 70th, we were penalized too much and didn’t have the ball.”
“We’re going to lower our heads”
This while his players, who led by nine points at the break, had a big opportunity to increase their lead at the start of the second act. “There was the possibility of taking the pointsexplains the manager. We showed the posts to Thomas Ramos (who was captain, Editor’s note) and he didn’t want to take them. We went into touch, we weren’t far from scoring. It is a fact of the game. It is true that our choices, of absolute relevance last season, are of less than brilliant relevance this season. We are going to lower our heads, we are not going to reason too much, especially since we lost against a team that is difficult to maneuver at home. Sometimes we are quite brilliant, like in the first half. Then, sometimes, we pedal a little next to the bike.” Nice (or cruel) metaphor for the start of the Red and Black season…
