The accession barrage opposes this Sunday, June 12th the Landais of the Stade Montois Rugby to the Catalans of the USA Perpignan. Who will play in the Top 14 and who will play in Pro D2? Answer from 5:45 p.m. on the lawn of the André and Guy Boniface stadium. In this meeting, there is a Basque that the spectators will scrutinize, it is the referee, Thomas Charabas. The one who is also an emergency doctor at the Bayonne hospital talks about this shock and his way of approaching it.
France Bleu Pays Basque: Before refereeing a meeting with such a stake, is there necessarily any pressure?
Thomas Charabas: I stopped wondering if this was the most important game of my career. Last year, I had the chance to make a Top 14 play-off between Racing and Stade Français, I was already a linesman in a Top 14 final, I have trouble ranking these matches . It’s hard to tell me: “this is the culmination of my career or the greatest I have refereed so far”. Overall, I don’t think I’m going to change my way of preparing. It would be a mistake, even if I know that the performance of the refereeing corps will be highly anticipated and highly watched. More than in other matches in the year, of course. As an arbiter, you have to avoid thinking about this kind of reasoning: how much the New Aquitaine Region would put in the event of a climb from Mont-de-Marsan, would the Catalan country be disappointed in the event of a descent, etc We must be fair and impartial. To do the maximum for in any case. Afterwards, the weight of the decision, we are aware of it, clearly. But to make a decision, we will have to be really square on the choice, the fault, that we have not the slightest doubt about a decision which would have a direct or indirect impact on the rest of the meeting.
Is this the first access match?
I was lucky enough to make the key twice in the accession play-offs. Obviously not the Bayonne-Biarritz derby, that I would never set foot there. It’s way too complicated in terms of relationships with my friends. But I made the key in the last two play-offs, before, and these are certainly matches in which we are completely in the unknown. The first in particular, Grenoble-Oyonnax (won by Grenoble, then in Pro D2, 47-22). We thought Oyo above and Grenoble very quickly showed us the opposite, in barely ten minutes. I’m not preparing to tell myself “we’re going to finish on penalties”. These are very difficult matches to understand.
Does the preparation change for this type of meeting?
Throughout the season, we have processes, technical meetings together, as a team, in order to be as coherent as possible, even if I know that sometimes the players, the coaches, the spectators find us inconsistent. It is linked to the rules of rugby which are complex and to the interpretation that this requires. Often, we try to watch the previous matches of the teams. We take time, we try to get out of it as much as possible because it’s important to know how the teams play. And at the same time, it’s not fundamental for me either, because from one match to another, a lot of things can change, everything also depends on the balance of forces involved. For example, I didn’t watch the Pro D2 final because, for me, it doesn’t make sense to prepare for this accession barrage. I will not consider that Mont-de-Marsan showed all its cards in this final. Watch matches, yes, to possibly detect particular things, but to say to yourself that “because they did that in one match, they will do it all the others, no. We try to do that in a balanced way. And then, with colleagues, we discuss technical points that we have been able to identify.To find out, depending on the different situations, how to act in conjunction with the touch judges, with the video referee, etc.
Refereeing such an important match must still be special, even when you officiate with the whistle in your mouth…
Arbitration, even if the spectators and supporters around have difficulty understanding it, it is close to what the players experience. Players make seasons to play finals. So be careful, it’s not because when you’re a player, you don’t play in the final stages that the season has completely failed, and it’s the same thing when you’re a referee. But actually, it’s always a plus. It’s one of those matches for which you want to be in the middle, to decide, to manage these moments. But the pressure that Perpignan has to avoid going down or the pressure at Mont-de-Marsan to go up, it’s not what we have, as a referee. Our goal is that if they have the pressure on their pumps, it’s not on ours. And if they try to put it on us, we’ll try to clutch it and send it back to them.