Due to capricious weather, ASM Clermont experienced many difficulties until Vannes, for Sunday’s match: the Auvergnats had to land in Caen, nearly 300 kilometers from the Rabine stadium, before travel the rest of the way by bus. Christophe Urios returned to this memorable journey.
The return trip must have been much lighter for the Clermontois than the outward journey, with one more victory in the bag but relieved of many fears. After the success of his team in Vannes (19-20), Sunday in the Top 14, Christophe Urios returned to the particular conditions of the arrival of ASM for the match.
Accompanied by particularly difficult weather conditions the day before, the Clermont delegation experienced the worst difficulties in arriving at the correct (air)port. “The flight attendant said to me: ‘Are we going to Caen or are we likely to land? Knowing that we don’t know how we’re going to end up…’. say: ‘Let’s go to Caen!’”, the coach preferred to laugh at the microphone of Canal +.
“We couldn’t see anything there”
The Auvergne team continued their long journey by bus, forced to spend three and a half hours on the roads after finally managing to land, not without difficulty. “What tipped us off was that we added fuel, we said to ourselves that it wasn’t necessarily a good sign…”, Urios recalled a little later in post-match press conference.
-“When we arrived here, it got worse after an hour of flight. We couldn’t see anything. We tried to land two or three times, but we didn’t succeed. The air traffic controllers did sort of land as close as possible. Lorient, not possible, Rennes not possible, Brest not possible and Nantes did not want to receive us so we ended up in Caen.
Fourth in the Top 14, the Clermontois will hope to avoid the English fog at the end of the week during their next trip. It will be for the Champions Cup, against Bath (Sunday, 6:30 p.m.).
Romain Daveau Journalist RMC Sport
