Joan Caudullo remembered the excellent state of mind of his players after Montpellier's victory in Clermont. The MHR manager was also delighted with the performance of Stuart Hogg.
Joan, you expected a huge test in Clermont. It's more successful, isn't it?
Indeed, we are happy because at the end of the first period it was hard we could have taken more points. I have the feeling that when we were in their camp we were sterile and that's what was damaging in the first half! Then in the second half, we completely put our strategy back in mind against a very strong team. But the performance of the players is exceptional.
Do you have the feeling of having imposed your tempo against ASM?
A bit yes, if we won this arm wrestling we knew that we wouldn't be far away the whole match. We didn't lose our composure, we had a penalty returned at the end of the first half which did us good and we made fewer mistakes than usual.
Up front, you were also dominant…
Yes, we took the lead even if the scrum was a little difficult for us. We knew that Clermont lacked stability in this sector, but our defense was heroic, we moved well and we didn't have any offside lines. As I said, It’s a magnificent performance to have won here.
Stuart Hogg passed the necessary penalties at the end of the match. How did you feel it?
Stuart has two faces! He is an exceptional player and brings us a lot on and off the pitch, but overall, everyone was up to the task. But we have to beat Bayonne to validate this performance on Saturday and get closer to sixth place which is starting to be our objective.
What is your assessment at mid-season?
It's difficult because we have one more away match so we will take stock at the end of January after the Toulouse match. But I have talked a lot about maintenance since the start of the season, I fed my players with it and today they told me that they did not want to play maintenance.
What was the atmosphere like in the last few hours before taking off for Clermont?
Since the match against La Rochelle, there has been a good atmosphere, the state of mind has changed and I very quickly felt from Thursday that we were in place. Thursday's session was difficult because it was a restart and we knew it was the same for Clermont. We worked well strategically by holding a lot of meetings to implement what we wanted to do in Clermont. The guys joined quickly, the team was announced immediately after our victory against Racing. Today, it's a winning bet I'm happy for the players, they've been struggling for a year and a half, they finished thirteenth last season, it was complex except for two minutes they were in Pro D2.
What did you say to your players in the locker room?
We told them that we had to continue like this and that with this state of mind we could do great things. We gave the players some rest and today they responded, so that comforts us! We must validate in Bayonne next week, it will be very important.
Related News :