After a week of vacation, the UBB met again on Monday May 9th. “We talked a lot between us, there were a lot of things to settle, we were not well“says the second row Jandre Marais.
Discussions to put your finger on the causes of this series of seven defeats in nine Top 14 matches which took the Union from the status of serene leader to that of threatened dolphin.
A team spirit to find
“There have been updatesconfirms the international opener Matthieu Jalibert, it heated up whether it was with the staff but also between the players. It’s normal for there to be this tension and, in quotation marks, these settling of scores because we screwed up, we know we didn’t do things. If we want to progress, achieve our goals, we have to tell each other things as they are, that everyone takes their responsibilities. Sometimes it’s not fun but unfortunately in the life of a group, you have to go through these stages, especially when you’re in complicated times.“
– Justine Hamon
“We had to have clear ideas about what we needed to do and not do.“, specifies manager Christophe Urios who raised his voice as he did last season after a home defeat against La Rochelle.
We screw ourselves up because we are not up to the task. It’s not acceptable.
He’s talking about “shame“About the last loss at home (16-29) against Toulon, the fifth in row to Chaban Delmas in all competitions.We have seen the face of the last two matches. You go to Montpellier as a real team, you receive Toulon and you are not a team. So in the meantime we let go.“
There is an urgent need to react, insists Christophe Urios. “Everyone is happy, when you meet people in the street, they tell you that we are going to have a good end to the season. But we can finish 7th. It is a problem of character, of responsibility. What we did against Toulon is not possible. It’s the game of the year, it allowed us to be first, to qualify and to have a somewhat quiet end to the season. There, we are screwed up because we are not up to the task. It’s not acceptable.“
The manager refuses the hypothesis of the “sufficiency“but laments a form of”lightness” in a group that has filled in, got back to work to succeed in putting words into action on Saturday against the LOU. And to see the intensity of this Tuesday’s session, the message seems to have been heard.