France Bleu Gironde: The group had a tense week after statements by Christophe Urios following the setback in Perpignan. Today, is it going to go back to normal after this victory or is it going to take a little more time on both sides to digest all this?
Jefferson Poirot: Getting in order is a big word. We had a tense week because it was a week of the final stages, tensions like that, I think there are in all clubs from the moment we play matches at stake, from the moment where you want to win titles, as long as there is character in both directions. That being said, there are contexts and clubs which are a little more publicized, protagonists also who are a little more publicized than others. After me, it seems to me that there was nothing abnormal this week. There was also just a group that needed to take charge after a defeat that we didn’t necessarily expect, we wanted a reaction to a quarter-final. So today, I think there is nothing abnormal and that we are making a lot of noise for not much in the end.
Laurent Marti, questioned by our colleagues from Sud-Ouest, said to me, I prefer to have people who are not smooth, you need character, rough edges in the life of a club. You share ?
Yes, I share. It has always been like this. There were times when we were the Bordeaux of good living only, everyone was nice to each other and then finally, at the end of the season, we finished seventh. So today, if we have ambitions, it is also at certain times having to take the place, having to go ahead and also having to confront points of view and I think that is the normal life of a club which has ambition.
Everyone found themselves a little too comfortable and did Christophe Urios want to kick the anthill?
I don’t know if it’s really very comfortable because if we go through our season, we start very well with a full squad and then a cascade of injuries which is quite incredible for the club. I think that in this period also where it was difficult, we still hung on and today without all the little points that we recovered on the right, on the left, on matches which were difficult with a workforce greatly reduced, we would not even be in the top six. So I also think that we have to put things in their context. We are a group that has never looked for excuses, never hidden behind these absences. But when you are 22 players short of going to play in Clermont, you don’t do the same week of training, you don’t play the same match, you don’t have the same safe management. On the players who are involved every weekend, on the fatigue of the players. So inevitably, after a while, it is also found. And that, we often forget and it was a real black point of our season since we have more than too much comfort.
Today you can reassure the supporters who were a little worried last week, is it somewhere in the life of a group that has ambitions?
All we wanted to give was a victory for our supporters, it was such a convincing victory, to play at our level and then be able to continue on the path to continue dreaming and writing the history of the club. We are on our way. Now, we must not disperse with useless things that are around rugby. We have to really focus on rugby, on what we have to do. What we have to do is beat this Montpellier team this weekend.
The week is going to be very short. What will be the role of managers? Is it going to be as important as last week, which everyone admitted was different, or are you going to go back to a classic operation?
No, it has to stay the same. In the end, we are the ones on the pitch so it has to stay the same, especially since we will have very little time to prepare for it. So we will have to be as efficient as possible. We will have to consolidate the automatisms and take even more certainty on what did not work on the Racing match. It has to go very quickly. Managers have a big role to play on the pitch this week.
The Council of Elders will still have a job there?
What’s normal at this time of year is again there’s nothing out of the ordinary in the final stages, needing executives to take charge, executives to walk past and their opinion on training, their opinion on the combinations that will play this weekend and their opinion on the operation of the club. For me, there is nothing abnormal about that.