The Section had to settle for a defensive bonus point this Saturday on the Castres pitch despite an end to the match in their favor where they even had two golden opportunities to hope to achieve their first away success.
Trailing by twelve points an hour into the game, the Pau Section could consider themselves happy to leave the Tarn with a defensive bonus point as they had become accustomed to during these last trips to Pierre-Fabre. Indeed, while Castres seemed to have widened a definitive gap, Sébastien Piqueronies’ men made the CO tremble until the last minute, thanks first of all to a try from tightrope walker Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang in the 70the minute before the end of a one-sided meeting. The bonus point was therefore not a consolation prize for winger Aymeric Luc: “It’s annoying because the last five minutes are to our advantage. We have the opportunities to go ahead, or at least get back on par. On the other hand, we retain a little positive because during our last outings, we did not finish at minus five but at minus thirty.”
An observation shared by his manager Sébastien Piqueronies who oscillated between pride and frustration: “Taking this bonus point means that we are moving forward. We are frustrated and disappointed but the Section is moving forward. We clearly have two match points that we are not capable of converting but we have two match points. Be in money time, away, moreover Castres, and having a match point in these conditions is already a step forward for us.”
“It was a turf game.”
The Section had to settle for a second defensive bonus point away from home after the one acquired in Perpignan. This time, the Béarnais had let slip away a victory that held out their arms to them. This time, they were unable to force their destiny. Is it a lack of control in decisive moments? Aymeric Luc tried to answer: “We didn’t often find ourselves in situations like that away from home, being in a position to win on the last action. We see today that we are not ready to achieve this performance. We were at minus twelve but we didn’t give up and we managed to come back but we didn’t finish the job.”
For his part, Sébastien Piqueronies did not want to summarize this defeat with these last two unsuccessful penalties: “Our start to the match mirrored our end to the match. We have two clear opportunities where we don’t score. We converted six points at the foot which is good for us but ultimately I think it’s not much given our domination. It was a territory game that we dominated at the start and end but we were very dominated in the middle. The final score reflects that.”
Belgium
