Toulouse. Spacer’s: a bad score to complete the first leg
Suffocated in the last two sets, the Toulouse are competent for the moment seven points behind the 8th place held precisely by the Parisians.
“Yes, of course, there is a lot of disappointment, both when we look at the final score and when we talk about our level of play.” Less than 24 hours after this setback at home against Paris (1-3), Patrick Duflos, Spacer’s coach, is not looking for excuses. “I really want to underline the very good copy of the Parisians”, insists the technician from Toulouse, whose troops nevertheless reacted well by pocketing the second set.
But thereafter, his proteges no longer had the weapons to go the distance (22-25, 25-21, 20-25, 16-25). “The situation is clear. We were simply suffocated by our opponents. They were much more realistic. Certainly, we fought well, we were able to show good things, with once again a formidable public which created a great atmosphere. Nevertheless, on arrival, we collapsed too quickly to hope to reverse the situation. Paris was very solid, it must be recognized “, continues Patrick Duflos to summarize this ninth defeat of the season (the second in a row after the one in Plessis-Robinson five days earlier).
In Narbonne “with the knife between the teeth”
In accounting terms, at the end of this first leg, the Spacers are currently seven units behind 8th place (occupied by the Parisians), synonymous with the play-off. However, Patrick Duflos remains optimistic: “For the moment, we have only played thirteen matches. I think it’s still too early to set a precise objective. This championship is so tough, so random… It can go very quickly one way or the other. So we will continue to take the meetings one after the other.”
In the diary, the next appointment is only fixed for December 30 in Narbonne. “This mini-truce will do good to rest and, above all, to clear your head in order to recharge the batteries,” says the Toulouse coach. But for the Aude scale, its message is already very clear: “We will have to go there with the knife between our teeth.”