“What state of mind are you in?”
It’s an honour to be here, a great opportunity to represent this jersey. The season has been up and down but it was really much better towards the end, collectively with La Rochelle, and individually too. I feel better physically and mentally. It’s great. It’s a good way to end this season.
Do you feel a lot of pressure individually?
I didn’t see it like that, but as an opportunity to show myself and show that I can perform.
“I was lucky enough to experience two tours. I hope it goes as well”
Did you have trouble digesting the disappointment of the World Cup?
I’ve been asked this question a lot this year. It wasn’t necessarily easy, but I was able to bounce back, and I prefer to keep the positive from this season. It feels good sometimes to be in the hard times to appreciate the good things afterwards.
Were you in that bad of a situation?
(Smile.) There are worse things in life, but I had never been confronted with that, with performances that were more average. I questioned myself, I continued to work. I always functioned in the same way. For that, it was good.
What does Fabien Galthié expect from you?
It prepares us for what a tour match is going to be like. I was lucky enough to experience it twice, in Australia (in 2021) and in Japan (in 2022). I hope it goes as well. We are discovering a new environment, new players since we don’t have a lot of experience all together. We are going to play in front of a big crowd that will be fully behind their team. We can’t wait to get to the match. It was good to acclimatize to the environment but it’s good to get to the match.
“It’s going very well (with Serin). We know each other outside too. We’ve been playing each other for a while now.”
Are you using the 2021 tour of Australia, which took place in much the same conditions without the usual framework?
We won a match there, which hadn’t been done for a very long time (1990). And new faces had emerged before winning quite a few selections and some of them went on to play in the World Cup (Woki, Jelonch, Danty…). We have to try to do the same thing. We know that Argentina is a big player, a semi-finalist in the last World Cup, with a lot of aggression and physical challenge. We’ll have to be there.
What does Baptiste Serin, with whom you are playing this week, bring to you?
It’s going very well. We know each other outside too. We’ve been playing for a while. He’s the most capped player on the tour (44 selections), he brings his experience.”
