The Paloise Section was soundly beaten on the Montpellier pitch (30-3 defeat) in the Top 14. The Béarnais even conceded the offensive bonus to the MHR after the siren while the staff wanted the ball to go into touch. Sébastien Piqueronies had very harsh words at a press conference.
Have we just seen the worst match in the Section Paloise this season?
I hope, secretly I hope so. I am very disappointed today. I feel like I've been humiliated. I am part of a humiliated team, humiliated in scrimmage and in the ground game. There was a strong team today who won, who even won with the bonus, thanks to our ridiculous side. And there was a weak team.
How can you explain this poor performance of your team?
Difficultly. We certainly must not work well enough on our support-carrier connection on the ground game. Faced with dense top 14 players, today we are not up to par on the ground game. So you have to take note and then work, work. Today, you evaluate yourself against a dense and very serious team in this sector and you are humiliated.
Why did your team want to play after the siren when there was nothing to hope for?
Tonight, we can play a match dominated and accept losing 23-3. 4 terrain points against 0. You do not advance but your opponent only advances 4 units. And there, we are ridiculous and we let the opponent take one more unit. We are playing a championship where the ranking is very tight. And I consider that giving one more unit, what's more, to an opponent who was tied on points this morning with us, is ridiculous. We, the staff, were clearly in favor of stopping possession and finishing at 23-3. The instruction had been given, obviously not clearly. So that means that I don't have to speak the same language as my players. Starting Monday, I will focus on doing common language lessons so that we are convinced that we are speaking with simple words, but the same ones.
Is there anger there?
I am very disappointed to have been humiliated and very angry that we did not respect the last instructions at the end of the match. Yes, there is a lot of anger over the last action, over our last possession. There is a lot of anger at not being able to show resilience and accept losing 4-0 in this very tough championship. That’s a lot of anger. I just expressed it to them. And then, there is a lot of lucidity about our shortcomings, about our ball range, about the reactivity of our supports, about the closed scrum. The only solution we have is to work together, to believe strongly in what we can improve. And given the poor quality of our ground game today, the only thing that reassures me is that we can improve it, starting from so low. But yes, I have enormous anger at everyone and then I have a feeling of shame for not having been at the level of the top 14 today, at least on the ground game and the closed scrum.
What is the solution to wake up your players: shout?
Scream, don't worry, we do it. Scream, don’t worry, I just did it. Shouting, don't dream, that's not what's going to make my players tougher tomorrow. There are plenty of factors that will make our Section players be tougher next Saturday against Lyon. The first is the emergency sector, accounting emergency because we may be last this evening. And then, we will host a Lyon team which will only be three units behind us, because they did not do better than us today, at zero points. So we're going to be in a really crucial situation next week, and it's up to us to manage these seven days well, in a stressful environment, to be in any case in two sectors, quite simply at the level of the top 14.
