Stade Français rugby director Laurent Labit particularly appreciated the offensive appetite of his troops. By removing the accounting pressure of this derby, he seems to have freed them. Is it sustainable?
Can this derby kick off your season?
We hope so. But we don't forget that during the last match we played at home, we also had a very good performance against Clermont, and the following week at La Rochelle, we experienced another disappointment. We will therefore remain cautious, with all the necessary humility. But obviously, achieving a match like this in the derby, and at the time of a restart, which is always a random moment, is very good. We are very satisfied with taking five points and with the content of our performance.
You were the thirteenth attack before this match. Scoring six tries must particularly please you…
Yes, obviously. Our offensive capacity is our construction site. Our team has a lot of certainty about its defense and its conquest. We wanted to increase the offensive cursor. We have to go through this if we want to have ambition. Tonight was a good production. But you will have to be able to republish. And that’s what will interest us in the weeks to come. Until now, we had put ourselves under pressure because of our poor results. That’s what got us into it. Over the past ten days, we have found a good quality of work. We felt that the players wanted to produce a good copy.
Finally, this derby fell well into your season to set in motion a new dynamic…
Yes. We prepared it like a derby. We didn't want to put too much pressure on ourselves with the ranking. Since 2017, we haven't won at home against Racing 92. These are always special matches. So we didn't talk about the rankings before this match. It was necessary to isolate the match from the context to play it fully. It doesn't matter if you're first or last when this match comes. He is apart, and he must be played as such.
Dimitri Szarzewski said he was surprised by your game. Did you decide to surprise Racing 92?
Every match has its truth… When you play Racing, you know that they like to have possession and set up their circulation circuits. The idea was to have the ball and not give it back too much. At the end of the match, we saw what they were capable of doing when we gave it back to them. So we tried to play in front of the defense, in the defense, with passes in contact or after contact. This surprised them. They expected a more direct game with more use of the kicking game.
Your two wingers have stood out. What did you think of their matches?
It's interesting for us. It's part of our offensive plans to be able to move the balls in the lanes. We have a lot of dangerous players there. We have to be able to create space for them and give them balls. Over the first nine days, we struggled. As this evening we were all aligned with the same desire, we saw what we could do in a match. We must continue on this path.
