France – New Zealand: “I screamed”, “the doc thought he saw something, but there was nothing”… Paul Boudehent recounts his end of the match

You are out on concussion protocol, what is the news?

Paul BOUDEHENT : Actually, the doc thought he saw something but there was nothing after the tests. I left in the 70th minute, there were 12 minutes left so everything was fine, no worries but as a result, I wasn't able to return or follow the end of the match. I screamed! I told them: “Honestly, at least give me the score (smile)!” But no, they had nothing (on the tests, Editor's note), I couldn't even see the end.

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How did you experience the match on a personal level?

There was a lot of rhythm. Whether on the races, on the impacts, it was honestly a big match. Personally, I'm happy with the sensations but above all I'm super happy with the group. The challenge was enormous, the motivation was there. Personally, I was keen that we succeed where other nations, whether Ireland or England, had failed. For pride in saying that the northern hemisphere is capable of defending itself too.

With two tests quickly behind schedule and collisions suffered, what do you say to yourself?

What we told ourselves all week is that we have character. And as French, I am convinced, we have an extra bit of soul which means that we are sometimes capable of surpassing ourselves on the pitch. I don't remember the score anymore (3-14, Editor's note) but at that moment, we said to ourselves: “Guys, we can do it, there's no way we're going to give up, we're going, we give our all.” We wanted to give the best possible performance anyway, so we just repeated to ourselves what we had said during the week.

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Your conquest was also difficult during the first act…

We were in difficulty but we are actually capable of it so there was really no panic or stress. We obviously knew that everything wasn't going to go very well, that they were going to respond too, so there were no surprises at that level. We know that we have our weapons, very, very high quality players, so we remained calm and tried to do our best.

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You were not there in 2021 during the first of the three successes of the Blues against the Blacks. What does this say about the evolution of the group?

There are a lot of players in the team who had never played against the Blacks and in the end, that was almost our strength. We had a group that was over-motivated, who didn't want to miss their chance. Several of us watched this match while not being on the pitch and this whole group of players including myself also wanted to make history in quotes. It's only one match left but we wanted to show that we were present and that we could bring something to the team, that we weren't just there as extras and we absolutely wanted to win.