While the MHR begins a survival operation against Castres on Saturday to remain in the Top 14, rugby director Bernard Laporte draws an extremely harsh assessment of the current situation, without forgetting to shoot his predecessors.
The time to take stock has not yet arrived for the MHR but one thing is certain: whatever the outcome of the season, there will be no qualms. Heads will steal for the benefit of strong heads, threatens Bernard Laporte in this uncompromising interview with the players. “I’m tough, but fair”, justifies the director of rugby, who has put everyone’s back against the wall. Four matches from the end of the regular season and two days before a crucial meeting in Castres, Montpellier still hopes to save its place in the Top 14. It will then be time, according to Laporte, to shape a squad of today in 2025. today “completely unbalanced”for which he places the entire blame on his predecessors. “We pay it cash”he accuses, opening the umbrella, before making an offensive speech: “We have four finals left. If we win three out of four, we can get through it”.
Bernard, have you digested the defeat (20-25) against Perpignan, which was anything but a neutral match?
There were two phases, one dynamic and one downward, and it ended in defeat, when we should win a hundred times. If we look at the missed opportunities, the shots on goal… That’s the high level. When you have opportunities, you have to take them. If you don’t put them on, the opponent stays in the match, and then you lose them. We’ve just had two serious weeks, but after that, it’s the competition that decides.
We would have to win three matches out of four. If that’s the case, in my opinion, we can get through it.
However, the general state of mind was there, in a context of strong pressure…
Yes, the first half was by far our best of the season. The problem is that we don’t score. We are at 10-5 at the break while the score should be 20-5. We are creating chances, but now we have to take them. Like PSG-Dortmund, it’s the same.
You no longer have your destiny in your hands, what changes in your approach to the end of the championship?
We still have a little, but we need to win three matches out of four. If that’s the case, in my opinion, we can get through it. It will really depend on what Lyon will do, which hosts Racing 92 on the day we welcome Toulouse (24e daytime). Given the calendar, it should be between Lyon and us (the MHR receives the LOU during the 25e day, 8 points separate the two teams). We still have four finals to play.
If we have to go (in the play-off match), we will go. We will be set after Toulouse.
Everything is still possible in the race to maintain, including playing an access match. Is the subject taboo?
In the situation we are in, we have to think about it and prepare. In terms of Jiff (players from training courses), we have already thought about all of that. As I told the players, there are two exits: either we win three matches, and we can avoid it, or it’s the “access match”. There is no other scenario. If we have to go, we’ll go. We will be set after Toulouse.
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Where do you find something to hope for?
If we are more efficient in our actions, we will find greater competitiveness. With all the respect I have for Perpignan and the season they are having, it is a match that we must lead by twenty points at half-time.
Guirado, Mercer, Ouedraogo left, they were not replaced. It is not the fault of this team but of those who built it.
Is Montpellier armed for this type of commando mission?
The players are aware of everything, we have explained all the scenarios to them. Afterwards we are missing Willemse and a few injured. It’s part of the seasons, but it’s not normal for us to be dependent on three, four players, with a very large overall payroll. This team is completely unbalanced, whoever made this team is a crook. I have always said it, it is unacceptable, because we pay for it in cash.
The club has had four captains this season, proof that leadership is in deficit…
(He cuts.) That there is a lack of leaders is obvious. This means that when Guirado, Mercer, Ouedraogo left, they were not replaced. It is not the fault of this team but of those who built it.
Does this mean that whatever the outcome of the season, the MHR will have to start from scratch?
No, not zero. But I told the players: we can change the cycle in 2025. We have twelve players at the end of their contract in 2025, so indeed, it could be a renewal. We will recruit around ten players in the off-season, and perhaps around fifteen more in 2025. It takes two years to build a squad.
What I say to the players stays between us, but I tell them truths that they may never have been told.
What is the message given to the players?
I always had a truthful conversation with them, sometimes intimate. What I tell them stays between us, but I tell them truths that perhaps have never been told to them. I’m tough, but fair. That 2025 might be a new cycle, I told them. We cannot constantly be with a president who provides resources and a club that is lagging behind. So if some people don’t play the game, we have to change players. I’m lucky at 60 to have experience, it’s my role to put pressure.
Your recruitment has started but you are still looking for the position of flyhalf, pillar and winger?
Roughly speaking, that’s it. We have already signed a center from Aurillac (Fijian Christa Powell, considered Jiff), a third scrum half (Alexis Bernardet, Montauban)… We are now looking for a ten and a very big left pillar who will do us good. The problem is that we cannot sign more than ten players because the number of our contracts is blocked.
There is also the Billy Vunipola affair (3e English line of Saracens), arrested on April 28 by the Spanish police, in Majorca, following an evening with too much alcohol. Does this incident call into question his transfer?
No. Saracens defended it well in a press release. I will have a discussion with him because he must not drink.
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Bringing in stars when you play downhill, honestly, it’s complicated. Today, we don’t have flashy recruitment
You promised a team of stars but that is not the case for the moment…
When I say a team of stars, I mean high-profile players. Bringing in stars when you play downhill, honestly, it’s complicated. Today, we don’t have flashy recruitment. We took some good players, the star at the moment is Joshua Moorby (New Zealand fullback for the Hurricanes), who is very good. We also need Jiffs, because our problem today is that non-Jiffs do not bring added value. The other problem is that the two pillars who arrived to be number one (Harry Williams and Karl Tu’inukuafe) are not playing. Guys who were third or fourth (choice) therefore found themselves bombarded into the team.
Does your sports policy not contradict the project of an efficient training center?
The training center is fundamental. Joan Caudullo does a considerable job but he also inherits something… We have five guys coming out of the center when Toulouse and La Rochelle have fifteen. And when you know that these young people are not counted in your 43 contracts, that offers a broader base of players that we don’t have today, and that punishes us once again. We have to work a lot at this level, but I wonder what our predecessors did? It’s a crazy thing. So I’m fully involved, there’s not a player who signs without me knowing. My role is to build all that.
The Usap-MHR match also shed glaring light on the issue of supporters. Is the GGL Stadium audience a “construction site” in your eyes?
I knew Stade Français, we can compare the two clubs. I think Montpellier is straddled between Toulon and Paris. What did Max (Guazzini, president of Stade français from 1992 to 2011) do? He brought in some very big players, stars, and the public followed. The Dominguez, the Dominici filled the Stade de France and, above all, they won titles. The rest does not exist.
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MHR-Usap: “Signing for Perpignan was the best choice of my career”, when the Catalan public boosts its players
The guys who made this team didn’t understand that we need leaders, guys who go in front
Can or should the MHR follow this pattern?
I experienced it at the Stade Français, I think it’s doable. There is rugby potential in Montpellier and the surrounding area. But for that, you need a great team that wins, otherwise people don’t come, they don’t stick. You can still do a “one shot” in 2022 without even knowing why you were champion, and miss out on going down the next season, but that’s not serious. We have to build, we have to build, with players who have the club mindset. There are too many players focused on themselves and not on the club. This is why we need to change
Did you expect to experience such a complex situation when you arrived in November 2023?
No, because I didn’t know the team at all.
Six months later, how do you judge your mission?
It’s hard to say. The coaches inherited a dilapidated team, mentally on the street. The first four months were terrible (before the arrival of the new staff). The team is also fragile in terms of quality of players. You are not in this situation if you have players with character. Ultimately, it’s not their fault. The guys who made this team didn’t understand that we need leaders, guys who go in front. They recruited to recruit.
