USAP and Jerónimo de la Fuente welcome La Rochelle this Sunday (6 p.m.). A match where defeat is forbidden. To do this, you will have to put in all the ingredients for 80 minutes and respond to the physical challenge to win all the balls, according to the blood and gold captain.
Is victory obligatory against La Rochelle this Sunday (6 p.m.)?
Yes, there are no questions to ask, you have to win. We need it. But, generally speaking, we always prepare to win. Afterwards, all the things you do during the week stop when the match starts. So we have to talk on the ground.
Is there additional pressure due to the caliber of the opponent and the last defeat at home, against Toulon (13-22)?
We play at USAP, we have pressure in every match, every season. We live with that. But, as I say all the time, you have to use it as a source of motivation. We play at Aimé-Giral, sold out, the audience is always there, whether we win or lose. So the pressure we have is this: that we are obliged to win for ourselves, for the people, for the USAP, for Perpignan. But it's in our way of living here, we know it, and it's great.
We have the feeling that what is still preventing you from switching to the right side this season is your difficulties in attack. What is missing to pass this milestone?
It's true that there are inaccuracies and small details that don't always work well in our launches, for example. We have to keep the balls we have in touch, in the scrum. We are going to play against a really strong La Rochelle team in these sectors. So it's going to be a big challenge for us. If we have our balls, we start making good moves, it's different than if every ball we have we lose. Then, knowing how to keep our balls allows us to grow our confidence too. So we will have to win all the balls we have to make good launches.
This will be precisely the challenge, responding to the strong conquest of La Rochette so as not to be deprived of balloons?
Yes. We have a big forward pack and we need them to work well during the match, and we have a lot of confidence in our pack. And I think they will have a big match against La Rochelle.
What you are also missing this season is being able to play a complete match for 80 minutes. Will it be essential this Sunday to hope to win?
Yes of course. Sometimes we only do 40 minutes, like in Paris, with a rather good first half and the second with too much indiscipline. I believe that, little by little, the players who were injured are coming back and, little by little, the team will grow. I have full confidence in the team to do it, because it is imperative to win difficult matches in Top 14 to work until the end, for 80 minutes.
The objective is always to put the USAP as high as possible.
It's not really your area, but you were penalized a lot for the balls carried in Paris, how did you analyze it this week?
We had worked on it a lot. But it's also one of the things that's easy to fix in training but that you have to know how to reproduce in a match, as I said.
Franck Azéma said after the match in Paris that it was sometimes complicated to adapt to refereeing, that it could be different from one weekend to the next…
Yes, but I don't want to talk about the referees, because it's a bit difficult…
It's been almost two months since you won (32-13, November 2 against Vannes), is that something that weighs on the group mentally?
Of course, because we always seek victory. That's why we have to win, at Aimé-Giral and away. And we will achieve victory, starting on Sunday I hope. In any case, we work for that, and we will always work to win, to put the USAP as high as possible. That's our goal.
The objectives were therefore not revised downwards after this bad series…
No. The objective is always to put the USAP as high as possible, that is to say the Top 6. Perhaps we can hear: “Okay, but what they say is not achievable, it’s not the real objective”. But if we say it, it’s because we believe in the team. We spent a lot of time with injured players, but they will come back with us, so I think we have to spend this time without the entire team, then we will achieve our objectives. I know we're going to work for it, and we're going to do it.
