One step forward, two steps back. While the Olympic Biarritz
had made a good figure in Montauban with his first victory away from his bases
, he lost this Friday evening in Aguiléra (18-15).
.. in the same way ashe had won Sapiac
. An irony of fate came to spoil the party planned at the stadium to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the title of champion of France in the first division of 2002, won for the first time by Biarritz that year against Agen.
After this 7th day of the Pro D2 championship, where the two former giants crossed swords for the first time this season, it is clear that Biarritz has still not fulfilled the constancy contract
. The BO played backwards against Agen. Wanting too much to move the ball
and wanting to reassemble it by hand at all costs, Biarritz was often penalized, and too many forwards to hope to win. The Agenais for their part made the perfect match away from home, intractable in defense, and feeding on the faults of the soundtrack. Same the tireless Johnny Dyer
remained discreet. Already a third victory outside Armandie for the Lot-et-Garonnais, who force Biarritz to resume its copy almost from scratch.
They said :
Baptiste Germain, opening half of Biarritz Olympique: ” Frankly, I think Agen came to play the game we played in Montauban last week. We played the game but we weren’t very effective. And it’s true that at certain times, we may have taken them a little high. And with so many crossings, we absolutely have to go in goal and that’s not what we did, that’s what cost us three points behind at the end of the match.
At half-time, we say to ourselves that we have to accelerate even more because we see that when we play, the spaces are there and we manage to unlock situations. We said to each other “If we keep accelerating like that, they won’t keep up” and on top of that, they take two yellows in the second half… In the end, we don’t materialize on this numerical lead on the field. They managed to hold at 15 to 13. We must at least score three or seven points and go back in front.
We had to validate the effectiveness, and we didn’t.
In Montauban, there was no real game, so it’s sure that the inaccuracies, we had less to do. And it is certain that when we try to develop an attacking game like us, we try to do so, there are inaccuracies. Maybe also that at times we played a little too much in our camp. We had to validate the effectiveness, and we didn’t.“
Ilian Perraux, center of Biarritz Olympique: “It’s a big setback. We mustn’t lie to each other, we completely missed it and personally, I think the whole team is very disappointed. We lacked realism. I also find that we lacked seriousness. We didn’t attack this match well, we let them hope. A team that had turned around a bit is one of the most dangerous, with guys who want to prove themselves. We put them in the game, we gave them confidence. We are very disappointed with ourselves. And congratulations to this Agen team.
We came in this week with too much confidence
We managed in the first period to unbalance them by playing. But as we said before, it’s the efficiency that got us that we missed. Maybe a little management. We knew we had a hinge that was playful. They play with their qualities, they are right. We had chances. Afterwards, it’s up to us to also help them score and score points. It’s more on that that we sinned. Rugby is not forgiving. We won away last week. We arrived a bit this week with too much confidence and Agen brought us back to earth directly.“
Shaun Sowerby, Biarritz Olympique coach: “In sport, everything you produce at the end, you have to close, you have to score, you have to be efficient. In Montauban, for example, we have few chances, we score every time. We put 46 points in Montauban. At the start of the season, in terms of efficiency, we are very efficient and as a result, we manage to win a few games. Against Agen, there was no efficiency and suddenly, the result is for the opponent and that is very frustrating. But it’s well deserved because if we can defend like that for 80 minutes outside, it’s because we deserve it. We are frustrated. We would have liked to win. We’re going to talk about the way and all that. We didn’t kill the game, we weren’t efficient, we didn’t score on our highlights.”