Rugby – Top 14: Consistent hunger for Division Paloise in Castres
Victory is a coup d’état. Two is an affirmation. There are three series.
The division does this with the happy trilogy of Paloise – La Rochelle, UBB, Brive. “Yes, of course, it’s a streak, but we’re not 8 wins in a row either,” assistant coach Antoine Nicoud delays the alarm before these 12.e Day in Castres. “The longer the series goes on, the closer it is to the end.”
But if this continues as a whole…
Victory is a coup d’état. Two is an affirmation. There are three series.
The division does this with the happy trilogy of Paloise – La Rochelle, UBB, Brive. “Yes, of course, it’s a streak, but we’re not 8 wins in a row either,” assistant coach Antoine Nicoud delays the alarm before these 12.e Day in Castres. “The longer the series goes on, the closer it is to the end.”
But if it lasts a little, it will be synonymous with the record: never in the era of the Piqueronies has the Section won a quadruple power play. “We don’t think about it, Nicoud. What we do know is that the Division is having a hard time defeating Castres, which means Castres is ahead of us. The goal is to evaluate oneself in a difficult context. »
Indeed, Pau have not beaten Castres since September 2019 and are on a five-match losing streak. The bigger test, as the first round of this 2022-2023 duel, will be held at the Pierre-Fabre stadium, where CO is not very funny: 26 matches without defeat. But the same observation, the longer a series goes on, the closer it gets to the end…
What causes a warning condition. This is aggravated by the defeat of Castres to La Rochelle (53-7) on Saturday. Avoid the mirage, says Nicoud: “For them, it was a nightmare match where nothing went wrong. They also sidelined a lot of players. Last year, they suffered a huge upset in Toulouse (41-0), which didn’t stop them from finishing the regular season in first place. The table is pretty simple, CO is coming off a tough matchup and we’re going to get a lot of engagements, a lot of direct play. It is no coincidence that this team never loses at home. We think we have been warned to see how we react on Sunday. »
Completely confidential
What is certain is that this team will not be fooled. He dominated Brive, but not blindingly. Nicoud again: “The observation is quite clear: we are a little less satisfied with the result, with the content. We have not sold anything else to the players. “At the beginning of the game, we were weak in communication. We slapped our fingers. We couldn’t do what we wanted, but we were able to win, “concludes the third row Sacha Zegueur. A realism that we can’t really complain about. It shows the progress of the formation, which for some time has not been surprised by its pragmatism.
And other indicators are green: the return from injury and new manpower density with the signing of scrum-half Dan Robson; defense also with this statistic 96% successful fight against Brive. “We miss less. We’re gaining confidence and that’s a good statistic,” Zegueur enthuses. Antoine Nicoud will wait a few more hours before confirming the trend. “If it goes well on Sunday, we can say that we have really progressed. We will face a lot of challenges, we play on a very high line, this is a team that pushes back and can hold the ball for a long time. If we are there, we are at the level, we will say that we have progressed. »
“The Day We Won’t Be Afraid”
Commitment will count: “If we have the determination to do the same with La Rochelle and respect our game plan, we can claim to have a good match,” Lekima Tagitagivalu slides gently.
Humility is also important since the defeat against Stade Français and the transition from last place. Retention remains a struggle. Zegueur avoids the fantasy of Top 6. “We are in 9th place in the rating, we have come a long way, we were hot. I’m not going to say we’re looking forward, but we’re going to try to move forward. »
Castres is worried, but it’s also good news. Pau from Stade Français is being replaced by a state of alarm. “The players reacted, they were scared, they were hungry,” Nicoud said. And that should guide us. The day we don’t fear, we won’t be good. »
