Pro D2 – Pierre-Henry Broncan (Brive): “We started too late, and too far away”

What feeling does this defeat in the play-off give you?

We must first congratulate this team from Béziers who knew how to go for victory at the end of the match. On our side, there is a lot of pride, because on February 29, we came here and we were ridiculous. Tonight, I think we deserved to win. We were dominant in the scrum, but unfortunately we learn in defeat. Five minutes from the end of the match, when we have an advantage over a Béziers forward, we must not play the advantage. We must be able to redo a scrum, to take three more points. On the last action, I was convinced that the referee was asking for the video on the last ruck but it was for a tackle sixty meters further… He’s a very good referee, but it’s a shame to have stopped than on the legal tackle of Tupuola. The last ruck is too important. We need to know if there is a fault or not. Perhaps we wouldn’t have given the penalty, but hey… It’s a shame, because I think our players and our public were very good this evening.

You decided to change your pillars every half hour and hour of play. Why?

We wanted to dominate this team in closed scrums, especially at the end of the match. It worked, but unfortunately the English “no scrum, no win” did not happen. I played here, and the scrum has an important place at this club. Béziers has long been champion of France with a big scrum. Having dominated them in this sector is also a Source of pride. It’s the result of a lot of work by Goderdzi (Shvelidze) who also played. But that wasn’t enough.

How did you lose that match then?

We made some small mistakes on the sidelines, on the dismissals. This is where we need to progress. But I repeat, on February 29, we were far from having small slags… We were incapable of making a maul, of dominating in scrums or of producing play. We had nothing, or at least not much . We have to build on this match. It’s still more interesting to talk about details rather than the whole.

We felt like a much more united group at the end of the season…

There is more cohesion in the group, that’s for sure. It’s a team that came down from the Top 14, a new group that was formed at the start of the season. It takes time. The last months, the last weeks, the last days, we have learned to discover ourselves, to know ourselves better. It makes a team stronger because they fight together. When I arrived, it looked more like individual struggles than a collective force. Today, it’s still a stronger group. And I like that.

What did you think of Tom Raffy’s opening performance?

I wasn’t worried about Tom’s performance. We must not forget that he is only 19 years old. We had put in place a defensive system to spare him. It wasn’t too bad. I think we prepared well for the meeting. It’s a shame that we don’t validate this preparation.

What do you remember from this season?

The lesson to learn is that you have to receive whether in the play-offs or in the semi-finals. Vannes and Aix-en-Provence will have a big advantage of hosting next week. We need to have a much better season in order to receive. We left too late, and too far away. This year, we made some achievements at the end of the season by beating Aurillac and Biarritz with the bonus, by winning in Vannes, but that is not enough. The players were mentally strong at the end of the season. We must build on this for the next year.

What is next in the program before resuming preparation for the next exercise?

The players are going on leave. The club, in general, will have a lot of work to do to finalize recruitment in order to have a slightly stronger squad than this year, a squad capable of hosting in the final phase next season. This is the most important thing in the coming weeks.