Millau. “His partner asked us to play while thinking of him…” Minute of silence, jersey and photo tributes to Loïc Keita

It was President Laurent Tabutin, moved to tears, on the road back from the Rock, who last night managed to say a few words about a Sunday which will remain forever engraved in the collective memory of Millau, and not only that.

“Obviously the afternoon was very complicated. For us, all we remember is that we have never talked about results since (SATURDAY) evening when we heard the sad newshe confided. We said to ourselves: “We’re going to try to play”, we said try. The guys succeeded, we take our hats off to them for that; because, as a player, I am not convinced that I would have been capable of doing it. “However, the decision not to postpone the meeting was clearly taken clearly by the Millavois.”We got together as soon as we heard the news and, unanimously, everyone decided to play. Knowing that we had said that if (Sunday) morning, once the night had passed, some did not feel it, there was no shame to be had, no taboo. We would have respected everyone's decision.“

“There is a teammate missing in the locker room, and he is not missing because he is injured, we know we will not see him again”

The setbacks for the B and pennant teams are only anecdotal this morning. Especially since the choice to play this match was supported by a very personal request. “His partner had sent a message to all of us asking us to play thinking of him, to try to shine for him ” Tabutin explained.

“We can imagine that we played with a lot of emotioncontinues Mattieu Issaly, the forwards coach present with his president in one of the vehicles of the Millavois convoy, when we talk about the atmosphere that we imagine was heavy in the glovers' locker rooms yesterday. And it's never good to play with emotion. There's a teammate missing in the locker room, and he's not missing because he's injured, we know we won't see him again.

So it was very, very complicated. We, the coaches, take our hats off to the players. They didn't cheat on the field but we still played with our legs cut off. The night was complicated, the guys didn't sleep much. The same for the coaches, we slept one or two hours because we thought about it. But I think that if it had been someone else, Loïc would also have liked to play; so we respected that, we fulfilled the mission of going to play in Monaco. “

Minute of silence, jersey and photo tributes

An opposing club that showed itself “ very respectful and very caring from the beginning“, testified Laurent Tabutin. “Everyone understood that there were other things more important than rugby. They had seen that Loïc had to play in B with the No. 3, they flocked a Monaco jersey with this No. 3 and they gave it to us before the match so that we could pass it to his widow. They also wanted a minute of silence before the headline match. And in the end, they were the ones who took the initiative to take a photo of all the players and managers of the two clubs mixed together. “

Som rugby already in mourning only a few days ago

“It's going to be complicated, even if next week we don't play, in the minds of the young people… The club, in two weeks, suffers two deaths (Oscar, a child of the club, died very recently, Editor's note), recalls, not without gravity, Matthieu Issaly. It's going to be complicated for some, we're going to work on that.“Before trying to get up:”But hey, it will tighten us players, staff, managers, the whole rugby family. We are already tight, we have received lots of messages of support from other clubs, high level, Aveyron clubs, the group…“Shows of support from all sides up to the President of the Federation.