in Dijon, Soyaux-Angoulême is preparing to play “the most difficult match of the block”
We can be solid dolphin of National, undefeated for almost three months, and make the first not relegated the favorite of the meeting to come. generally inclined to display his ambitions for success with the championship leaders, Vincent Etcheto wanted, this time, to put into perspective the expectations that can weigh on his players for the trip to Dijon, Saturday January 15 (7 p.m.), “the toughest match on the block”.
We can be solid dolphin of National, undefeated for almost three months, and make the first not relegated the favorite of the meeting to come. generally inclined to display his ambitions for success with the championship leaders, Vincent Etcheto wanted, this time, to put into perspective the expectations that can weigh on his players for the trip to Dijon, Saturday January 15 (7 p.m.), “the toughest match on the block”.
More difficult than the trip to Nice and the reception of the undisputed leader on January 23. “I told the players that Dijon would be more difficult than Massy. Usually I say we’re going to go there to win, but it’s going to be very hard to do it there. It can be misleading, we can say that they are misclassified. But that does not reflect their value, what they have shown in the first leg and in the last three, four games that we have watched. »
“The slump” of the outward journey
Because the manager of Soyaux-Angoulême still has “in a corner of his head” the disillusion experienced in Chanzy (16-20), on September 12. Despite a mattress of +6 at the start of “money time”, the Violets had squandered their advantage in five minutes and two tries in favor of opportunistic Burgundians. And plunged a little more “into the doldrums” of the start of the season. Four months later, the dynamics are opposite. The SA XV comes out of a full game against Tarbes at home (40-7), while Stade Dijonnais has chained a 10th defeat in 11 games without demerit in Albi (19-13) and flirts dangerously with the red zone.
So, excess of caution or legitimate fears? “What Vincent means is that these are like the matches in Valence, in Albi, explains scrum half Emmanuel Saubusse. When you win away, it forges a team, it creates something. Going for away wins denotes a state of mind. Massy will be a very big match, we will have to play good rugby to win. But in Dijon, it will be more a question of state of mind. If we win there, we will be able to believe in ourselves. »
“Like Albi or Valence”
“This Dijon team is not at its level but for me it is one of the most complete teams in the group, continues Etcheto. She is strong, playful, balanced, with players at the end of the wing who go fast, two or three players in the second line who carry the ball and are aggressive, a quality hinge… She should play the race in the six. We are going to go there as if we were going to Albi or Valence. »
In Tarn (10-30) and Drôme (10-19), the last trips to date, the Angoumoisins had delivered two very good performances. Confident after the copy made against Tarbes, they still advance in preferred logic and secretly an eighth success in a row. To stay within reach of the Massicois leader before the shock at the top in Chanzy, but also to erase, like the revenge against the Stado, the painful defeat of the first leg. “I didn’t play the match, I don’t really have that feeling, tempers Saubusse. I think we are more focused on our performance and our construction. We know it’s going to be a complicated and somewhat hostile match. But it is sure that if we can give them back their own coin (smile)…”
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Pienaar, first
Five changes have been made in the fifteen compared to Tarbes: Ramon Ayarza and Vartan replace Odishvili and Kumbirai in the front row, Saubusse regained his position as number 9, while Lafitte and Inaki Ayarza remained at rest in favor of Guillaume Laforgue and Talebula . South African pillar Nolan Pienaar makes his first appearance in the group.