Nice won at Aurillac (25-16) and signed its second away victory this season. Full-back Paul Auradou was satisfied while Cantal scrum-half David Delarue regretted the enormous indiscipline of his team…
Paul Auradou (Nice): “We never doubted”
What is your first feeling after this victory at Aurillac?
We are obviously very satisfied! We know that it is very difficult to come and get points here. We knew it would be a complicated match given the weather conditions. We were able to put them under pressure at home with good discipline and thanks to our defense. That’s what made the difference. Already at fifteen against fifteen it’s difficult, then at fourteen for half an hour it’s even less obvious. So we took advantage of their yellow cards, good for us.
You have just scored your second away victory. Did you expect it so early in the season?
It’s a great operation for maintaining, we had difficulties at home so we had to make up for it outside. We were able to do it in Agen and we are replicating it here so it is encouraging for the future, it is now up to us to rectify the situation at home. We have a big match awaiting us against Valence-Romans next week so we will have to use the same ingredients and leave with our heads held high. It wasn’t the best rugby match of the year but we had to win.
Where was the game played?
We knew how to occupy and feed on their faults. When Aurillac went in front shortly after the hour mark, we said to ourselves that we had to go back to the front, we were never let down, we knew that they were undisciplined so we never doubted . There aren’t a lot of flaws with them, we knew it was difficult to win here.
David Delarue (Aurillac): “The yellow cards hurt us”
David, how are you digesting this disillusionment at home?
It’s not what we expected but they played the perfect game away. We believed in it a little in the second half but the yellow cards hurt us and they knew how to take advantage of it. We missed being better in the conquest, they were stronger than us in the match, they countered our throws well, their kicking games were good unlike us… All this meant that we lost this battle. We took boxes, severe or not, they hurt us. We took a try per card so it’s difficult, especially in this style of match.
Yet you were ahead with a quarter of an hour to go…
Once we got in front we made mistakes very quickly and we conceded points very quickly. They were very pragmatic and precise, they made it happen every time. The frustration built up as the game went on because we never managed to get into the match, we made lots of little mistakes and we wanted to swing the game back to our side. But there is no urgency we are on the 7th day we have seen teams start very badly and finish well but we have to get up very quickly and that will be the state of mind of the group it’s a blow club on the head but the objective is to get back on our feet very quickly and regain our domination at home, like in the match against Grenoble which is our reference match.
How can we raise our heads now?
We will have to go and win away to compensate for this defeat… In the locker room, we didn’t say anything special to each other, we weren’t good, we know that, now we must not lower our heads because there is still lots of matches.
