Undisciplined and blunt, the Toulonnais delivered a very poor performance on Saturday in Créteil…
We will finally remember from Toulon’s last match in the Top 14 that this team, although studded with confirmed internationals and stars in the making, attacked its first ball in the 79th minute. Or when the match was already over. Why the hell didn’t the RCT dare to play rugby with dignity in Créteil? And how can we explain this timidity bordering on circumspection, when it was a question of making passes and shaking the Racingmen’s squash, ball in hand? We imagine here that the Toulon staff, after beating Stade Français at Jean Bouin three weeks ago using the same ultra-safe scheme, thought that this Bruno Retailleau-style rugby would probably work every weekend. This is not the case and in the light of this sixth round of infinite sadness, we conclude that the Var finally no longer had enough fuel in the hold to hope to overthrow this less than brilliant Racing, but much more costs.
At a press conference, Pierre Mignoni, the sports boss of the RCT, said this: “We tried to produce in the first half but we did it against the grain and without being effective. Their alignment put us in check and Ultimately, we had too few balloons to be able to express ourselves. On this match, oWe didn’t escape but we clearly lacked energy…” On this subject, third line Esteban Abadie elaborated: “We wanted to base ourselves in Créteil on what hasshut up is our strength in Paris and Clermont: odidn’t want to occupy, put pressure on them but we were too undisciplined (17 mistakes committed, Editor’s note), probably because we spent eighty minutes defending…”
L’interrogation Serin
The RCT, three victories and three losses since the start of the 2024-2025 season, is obviously not yet dropped in the championship. But at the end of this trip to Ile de France, we are entitled to wonder about the state of fatigue displayed by certain Var players in recent weeks. Last Saturday, Paolo Garbisi, who has cut very little since the Italians’ summer tour, once again walked next to his pumps. As for Baptiste Serin, although so strong since he put on the Toulon jersey, for his part seemed blunt and generally incapable of giving this match of crass indignity the rhythm that it would have deserved. Here, let us ask ourselves this question: how did the RCT scrum half, singled out by federal officials following the tour to Argentina, experience this episode? And to what extent should the child of Parentis, captain of a French team in disarray in South America, have been better protected by the French staff and the federal leaders, when the cannon thundered? We can be wrong, obviously. But many of us fear, in reality, that Serin ultimately paid for something for which he was in no way responsible. And this injustice continues today…
