Faux pas forbidden, but do not panic. This is a bit of the watchword on the side of Montpellier, before the reception of Stade Français, dolphin of Toulouse and which remains on three successes. Indeed, if the series of four setbacks do not give a smile to anyone among the Cistes, only the one against Lyon at the GGL really made people cringeespecially in the mouth of a manager who obviously did not mince his words.
Thomas Darmon confirms, moreover, that the walls shook after the last home performancebut believes that the page has been turned: “Against Lyon, it yelled, because we were not there, in the state of mind. On the other hand, the last match at Racing, it was not perfect, but at times, we found this state of mind which is our strength: to be strong in defense, to throw ourselves on the balls which trail. So don’t put your head upside down, you just have to play again as we did at times against Racing, and it’s going to be fine. We have to be sure of our strength, it is useless to question everything“.
Especially since the center of the MHR rightly recalls that Montpellier has not missed everything, since the recovery of the championship:We are having a good start to the season, we are taking on some very good teams, we are managing to complete matches. We showed that we were capable of playing well over 80 minutes. So there is no reason, we are able to do it again“.
The MHR has indeed not abandoned all of its rugby in the sand of the widely furrowed Hérault beachesthis summer, even if everyone agrees to say, and it may seem paradoxical, that a championship title can be difficult to digest: “It’s true that when you’ve been in shit, you don’t want to go back, whereas when you’ve touched the stars a bit, you stay in it a bit”, explain it third row Alexandre Bécognéebefore continuing: “It’s a bit what is said. Afterwards, I don’t think we’re staying on the title. We moved on. There were small doubts, but nothing serious. We just have to go back on the positive and everything will be fine. We also had a lot of changes, a lot of injuries in the center, a new hinge. It takes time to acclimatize, for the sauce to take. I think it will take, but it have to give time“.
Only, the MHR has only a few now. Several jokers have already been grilled. Against Stade Français, Yacouba Camara and his partners will no longer really have the right to make mistakes, otherwise the crisis would point the tip of his nose, and the initial plans will end up falling through, according to Philippe Saint André : “Whether you win this match, you don’t go to the top of the table, but you come back in the race. With a loss, the goals would be completely different. For the moment, we cannot imagine defeat. We play a Stade Français with full confidence, but we only had one non-match this season, against Lyon. We will try not to do a second (…) We have places in our game where we must be more conquering, more efficient, less penalised. The work, this week, was accessed on it“, concludes the number one of the Hérault staff.