On the eve of this quarter-final first leg of the play-offs, Union Tarbes-Lourdes coach Stéphane Dao asked himself a question: “What will take precedence? Is it the freshness of my team which benefited from two more days of rest, or is it the fact that Avignon-Le Pontet was able to stay in the rhythm, keep the pressure, since they are played on Sunday?”
The pressure is still on the Union who receive to begin with, and Dao knows it: “We have to win this match to reverse the pressure on the pitch. Tonight, it’s us who have the pressure.” In the event of a victory for the Union, it is the Vauclusiens who will have their backs to the wall while the Bigourdans will still have a chance during the 3rd match, if they lose on Friday.
Consistency
Which Stéphane Dao hopes to avoid of course. He followed the progress of Avignon-Vitré last Sunday and clearly identified the problem: “We will have to be consistent over four quarters. We know that it is a team that can ignite, as we have seen in the first leg of phase 2, at home I think we have more rotations than them so we have to play this match so that little by little our freshness makes us win.
So we come back to this opposition of freshness versus rhythm. Where are Alex Casimiri’s players physically? Steven Cayol is in full swing (22 points against Vitré), Hernandez imposes himself in the racket where Kovanusic represents a real danger, Bourcier, Pothion and Lenoir complete the picture effectively.
Confidence
Will the weight of last weekend added to the length of the trip handicap the Avignon-Le Pontet team? We won’t know until this evening, but we will remember that on March 15, the trip to Lourdes did not bother the USAP guys.
And what about Bigourdan? Dao is satisfied with the week of training and he says: “I have confidence in the guys, I have confidence in the game.” And he even hopes: “The two teams can play free because they were not expected at this level of the competition. And that could make for a very good basketball match. It would be good for the public, the partners.” He still adds: “Hoping that the public will be there, since the federation makes us play during a good bridge, and that is catastrophic.” But the Union supporters will be there. Let’s be sure.
