Judicaël Cancoriet (third row of La Rochelle, after the victory against Racing) : “It wasn’t easy, we are all proud to have managed to qualify for the final phase. A new Championship is about to begin. Bravo to Racing, they put us in difficulty. The match wasn’t easy, we didn’t do too badly. On the sidelines, we knew it was a big team, they hampered us on our throws, especially with Cameron (Woki) but we also managed to hinder their throws. We had zero information on the results of the other teams. We were focused on us. It happens that we have doubts, but we managed to stay strong. It took a while to get going but we are starting to regain our strength. We have fought all year, we will first recover well. In Mayol, the atmosphere will be hot, once again it will be trench warfare. »
Romain Carmignani (La Rochelle forward and defense coach) : “It was a very complicated match, we made it very complicated. We had 13 turnovers in the first period, due to hand faults. We’re not used to that. This is an area to work on. But we did the job, we are going to play our play-off in Toulon. Should we savor this qualification? Absolutely, we’re happy, it’s been a season of ups and downs but we’re in sight, the challenge is great, we’ll talk about it tomorrow (Sunday), we’re going to take some time to share a beer with the staff and the players. Racing had clearly come to get their defensive bonus point, they returned to the closed zone and made plays. They put a lot of pressure on the ground to recover penalties. »
Jules Favre (center of La Rochelle) : “It’s going to be a big match against Toulon, they’re at a great end to the season. It’s always complicated to play Mayol. The public will be there. It’s going to be a big fight. Qualification for the final phase is a minimum objective now. We would have liked to be directly in the semi-finals to make things easier for ourselves. We have worked hard in recent weeks to qualify, we have left a lot of juice. But we are going to mobilize for this barrier outside. »
: “It’s a new Championship that is about to begin”){kind=link}