“It was necessary and it felt good, it was hard to do worse than last week. We knew we had the capacity to do much better. The forwards played a huge part and that made the difference. When we move around, when we move around defensively, it’s much easier in attack. Always easy to do your personal job when everyone is playing a match like that. Collectively everyone did their job. We took pleasure in the effort. We must at least maintain this level to advance in this Top 14.
Ronan O’Gara (La Rochelle coach)
We weren’t confident but it’s a good reaction and it’s easier to play in front of our supporters. Now we have a big test awaiting us in 6 days (in Montpellier). We had a magnificent 40 minutes, we had a lot of work to do with the players who came on. I don’t know if we slowed down the tempo or if they accelerated it, but we were never in danger of losing the match and that’s a good thing for us. Teddy Thomas? It’s a wonderful story for him. It’s a lesson for everyone. He was very low (mentally), he had the door open (to leave, Editor’s note) but he worked, worked, worked and his wife helped him too. I have to congratulate my coaches too because it was a little tense between the two of us. But we changed the way we talk to him a little, maybe I need to give him more cuddles and be nicer to him! »
Teddy Thomas (Roche center)
“The feelings are a little mixed, we didn’t want to concede so many points, but we will remember the positive and this victory after the loss. There was a good start, a slightly less good ending. Physically, everything is fine, we worked a lot to get me back on track, I knew I could come back for this match, I feel very good. »
Louis Bielle-Biarrey (UBB winger)
“Of course we wanted to get off to a good start, we did quite the opposite, Yoram’s red card was almost a trigger. Defensively, it took us half an hour to find our bearings, and we came up against a good defense from La Rochelle. I think we gave ourselves the means to bother him during the last 50 minutes, we must remember this positive side when we were down 25 to 3 at half-time. We had great strength of character while in the first half, we lost all the collisions, it was extremely poor offensively. »
