Fabien Gengenbacher spoke on the eve of Lyon’s last friendly match, against Racing. In Bourg-en-Bresse, the Lou sporting director hopes to see his players be more connected in defense, in particular.
Fabien, what lessons did you learn from your players’ victory against Vannes?
In this first match we knew that we would have a lot of fatigue accumulated after our training camp. We did not lower our intensity for the match, the day before we did a big one-hour session. The temperatures did not help, but in the match we were rather precise even if we lacked energy and we had difficulty making progress in the first half. But we did not give up near our lines and we scored on our turnovers. We made a lot of rotations, we are now waiting to step up a notch against Racing.
What kind of match do you expect against Racing?
It’s hard to set a context and know what they want to do. We want to be more organized in attack and defense. We’re going to wait for the players on the notions of effort in particular. The week was less intense, so we’ll have to be more precise.
The Parisians were put through their paces, are you going to push hard in this sector?
Over the week we just spent, we didn’t talk about Racing. We’re working on our aspects.
Compared to the victory against Vannes, in which areas do you expect more from your players?
I expect more effective hunting and more offensive organization. We were pierced in midfield twice against Vannes because we went up in disconnection. We need to rectify that.
The Lyonnais remains loyal to his club. Le Lou has just announced the extension of his scrum-half Baptiste Couilloud until 2030.https://t.co/nxXIKlgU9B
— RUGBYRAMA (@RugbyramaFR) https://twitter.com/RugbyramaFR/status/1829073079353348440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Several internationals will be making their return. Which ones are likely to play?
All except Tomas Lavanini, who is with Argentina for the Rugby Championship, and Semi Radradra, who is stuck in Fiji. There are obviously different levels of fitness and the aim has been to get them back up to speed since their return two weeks ago. Overall, all should play around forty minutes this weekend.
Ten days before the start of the season, do you feel your team is fully ready?
The friendly match was planned in a calibrated program so that we have a gradual increase in workload before the restart. We need this match to get our bearings. And from Monday we will be in championship mode.
Jono Gibbes arrived this summer. What did he bring you in concrete terms this pre-season?
He is fully part of the coaching team, he brought us his foreign perspective to build the game model that we want to implement at Lou. He had the opportunity to perform as a manager and I feed off him. From the start of the Top 14, we will have two video conferences per week and he will return to Lyon in five weeks.
Will the priority objective of the season be to win away as quickly as possible?
In any case, we must not dissociate away matches from home matches. We must start off with full speed, performance is the result of what we build during the week.
Baptiste Couilloud has extended his contract with Lyon for five years. We can imagine your relief…
I enjoy working with Baptiste, he is always looking for solutions, he is evolving in his role as leader and he is concerned about the life of the team. He is the captain, he is trained at the club but it was normal that he was solicited by other teams in view of his seventeen tries last season. That he asked himself the question of leaving is normal, but I take his extension as a sign of confidence.
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