Mont-de-Marsan for fun and first place.
The dauphinois, far from it, 11th, have nothing more to aspire to this season. Stade Montois has a three-digit balance sheet, 102 points, eight ahead of its runners-up, Bayonne and Oyonnax. Objective of the scratches, to have fun, put volume and seriousness, be diligent, play and win, stay undefeated and strengthen the first position. Because the open file is simple like an azure sky above Gascony in the spring. The Mons want to stay in the lead and therefore definitively validate their semi-final at home. The Stade is also eyeing the accounting cap of 110 points to be exceeded, which only Montauban and Lyon have succeeded in the history of Pro D 2. For the rest we wonder about Grenoble. The Isère club is certainly not in its place given its thick budget, its bloated workforce, the size of the Dauphiné agglomeration. The mammoth situation is even incomprehensible. In the first leg, at the beginning of December, the scratches had certainly lost the Stade des Alpes, 32-19, after a disappointing match that the Gascons could and should have won. But nothing in the chaotic temporada of the wolf burners allows to validate the ambitions of a troop which had announced to play the rise in Top 14. Ten victories, fifteen defeats, three draws, Grenoble rows. The troop led in particular by the former Dacquois pillar Romain David, Grenoble by birth, is nevertheless typical, homogeneous, and coherent in its constitution. With a little pearl to watch, Angel Capuozzo, twenty-three-year-old Franco-Italian, born in Isère, trained in Pont-de-Claix. Two selections with the Squadra Azzurra this year in the tournament. Capuozzo, without discussion, a big potential. Purchased by Toulouse. CQFD! The Mons, they look elsewhere. Towards their half in Boni. Towards tomorrow. As well. The hushed salons of Avenue Barbe d’Or drown out the noise of the palaver that constituted the next yellow and black troupe. With alternative puzzle: Top 14 or Pro D 2? Crucial question that must be answered now unless you find yourself very deprived when the time for the climb comes!
– pap