Melvyn Jaminet played his first VI Nations Tournament match. The rear of the Blues scored 10 points in this first victory 37 to 10 against Italy. The France team provided the essentials without shining.
For the back of the USAP, the victory remains the main lesson of this first day of the tournament: “There is a feeling of incompleteness, we make a lot of mistakes. We struggled to put our game in place and when you know the qualities that there are in our team, it’s very frustrating. A lot of us haven’t played a lot lately and a game like this puts us back in the mood for next week’s game and I think there’s only positive things to come.“
For his seventh selection, the USAP full-back still delivered a decent performance, he was in sight offensively, he was rather sure on foot and was the author of a decisive pass on the first try of the Blues but he also made a few mistakes:It’s a mixed performance, I lose a ball on an aerial conquest which leads to a try so it’s always frustrating. The character of the team meant that we did not let ourselves be defeated and we are very happy to bring back a bonus point from this match.“
We had a complicated week
In the rain at the Stade de France, it is clear that against the Italians, the Blues did not show the same face as against the Blacks last fall, and used their footwork much more: “I don’t think we pushed too hard with the kicking game. There were difficult conditions and holding the ball was very difficult. We have seen that we made a lot of approximations and too many mistakes. This kicking game just needs to be more precise, we will have to adjust that to play against the Irish who are very good at it.”
Despite everything, the Blues did not tremble at all against Italy, scoring five tries including three from RC Toulon winger Gabin Villière: “I am very happy for him, he gave a very good performance. We’ve been working in training for ten days to find each other, to play together. We had a complicated week to find each other well and we were a little in doubt so I’m very happy for him for his hat-trick and very happy because we managed to find each other well.“
Melvyn Jaminet and the Blues are well launched in this tournament but it’s a completely different opposition that awaits them next weekend against Ireland: “We have to settle these repeated faults and all these inaccuracies, we will have to hold the ball much more against the Irish, we managed to do it against the Blacks. We will also have to maintain the intensity for 80 minutes, we know that it will be essential. We know that they don’t give up from start to finish. We know that we will have to play a great game to compete against this great team.“