“How can we explain such a rout, such a non-match, in the final?
We saw very quickly in the first twenty minutes that we lacked a little energy on everything. We gave away easy balls, we missed tackles, conceded a yellow card. We were a little behind everywhere, we suffered all the contacts when the Toulouse steamroller started up. We saw very quickly that we were not invited. Against Toulouse, when you start to lose the arm wrestling, they break your wrist on the table. That’s what happened.
We knew we had a 3 in 10 chance of winning, we wanted to play hard. Our lack of freshness was glaring today (Friday). It’s complicated to compete with Formula 1 like that by playing a barrage and a half on energy. The lesson is that to beat Stade Toulousain in the final, you have to qualify directly in the semi-finals.
“Today, it was not the true face of the UBB. I don’t think we’ve ever made as many advances as we did tonight.”
Do you regret your bets of having established Matthieu Jalibert and Ben Tameifuna, who were not necessarily 100%?
We don’t regret these choices because they were weighed by the entire staff. You can’t beat Toulouse by trying to limit the damage. Against Toulouse, when you’re not the favorite, you have to take a gamble, you need your best players on the pitch. They have 23 international-level players, and even their best young players are at international level. They’re a driving force. I’m not changing my way of seeing things. To beat Toulouse, you have to be bold, take chances, and pray too.
Today, we could have chosen 23 other Bordeaux players, the result would have been the same. We must congratulate Toulouse for the way they outclassed us, for the locomotive that they are in the Top 14. Their team 1, 2, 3… We are not at that level. It looks like a humiliation in the final. But we must not forget that we still invited ourselves to this last meal with them. Today, it was not the true face of the UBB. I think we have never made as many forward passes as tonight. It was not really the image that we gave the UBB all year.
“Today, we arrived in a state of energy which did not allow us to hope for anything”
What did you say to Maxime Lucu, overwhelmed by sadness, to console him at the final whistle?
I told Max that he shouldn’t cry. You have to know how to recognize when you are outclassed by the opponent. Ultimately, it is better to be outclassed like that in the final than to lose 29-28 on a questionable refereeing decision. We are outclassed, we were not invited today. At the end of the match, it is not really UBB, the players are bruised, have given up in their heads, Toulouse is euphoric. There are 20 points too many, that’s clear. Toulouse is way above us.
Today, we arrived in a state of energy which did not allow us to hope for anything. Now you must not cry. We must not forget that we are in a year of construction. We checked off a lot of things this year, we laid the foundations for the future. And I think we’ll be better next year, maybe even better the year after. We were perhaps a little ahead in terms of passage times. We may also have run out of steam in this Top 14 final. And we are also less good than Stade Toulousain. »
