At the dawn of an almost 8th finals during the reception of Périgueux on behalf of the penultimate day of National, Pierre Roussel presented himself at a press conference to discuss this shock for the qualification in Playoffs. Whoever has accumulated since Mathieu Bonello’s sidelining last February, the positions of Deputy Managing Director and Coach of the forwards of the first yellow and black team, also recalled the transitional nature of his sports functions and his non -desire to continue beyond June on the edges to fully devote himself to his administrative prerogatives. The former Captain of the Albigensian Sporting Club also enlightened his words of the state of mind which inhabits the staff and the players at dawn to see the current sixths confront this Friday at 7:30 pm of formidable Périgords (3rd) in a meeting which should attract all the eyes of the anteroom of the pro D2.
You have a position for the moment quite particular since you are deputy director general and at the same time intervening / coach of the SCA forwards and you must therefore have big days. How do you do to partition both of them?
First, I do it because there is always Jean-Jacques Veyrac at the club, without that, I could not do the two positions. Jean-Jacques assures the daily life of the club and I come from time to time at the office when I am not here. It can be realized because it is still there because if we were not together, it would not be feasible so that makes very rhythmic days but it is done.
This is an interim to which there will be no follow -up, will you then reintegrate the offices?
Yes, of course. For me, I will not be a coach in the future, it was clear, it was just to help the club and I do it with pleasure.
Is it still good to find the field? Maybe it also facilitates the transition?
Finding the field is done naturally because I know guys and the game plan, I know the touch, a little less the fray but I try to do the best. It was done quite naturally, I know the guys so it’s rather simple, the players help me too, we are on exchange, we communicate a lot between us so we will say that it is quite simple.
5 games, 4 victories, beautiful dynamic anyway, especially this victory in Massy who does a lot of good?
Especially this one, yes. We received a lot of times what helped us too and as you said, without this victory in Massy, we would not be on this side currently and we knew very well that, whether Marcq or Massy, it was absolutely necessary to target one to find ourselves on the right side. The thing is done and now we are waiting for Périgueux on Friday evening.
In Massy, we saw that we had largely dominated the end of the match and this, even at 14 against 15. Do you attribute it to the contribution of the bench or else, as Théo had said, to the modification of the training that you did a little shorter but much more dynamic?
When you take a red card, either you lower your head or you tighten so we took the 2nd option. I think the players tightened, we take a try fairly quickly after having taken the red but then, we manage to resume the scoring and at the end, we locked everything, the players defended and they had a lot of courage in the last minutes in front of the line. I do not know if we can attribute it to training but it is true that on the latter, we try to put volume of play, more and more volume of play and I want to say that is not something that is done in a few months. It takes time so it will also be the new staff to put their hand on that because I think that in modern rugby, you have to put volume of play if you want to succeed. It is therefore something that takes time but we tend towards that at the moment.
Has coaching also been decisive?
Yes (smile). There is nothing premeditated, it is new to me as for Théo even if he has trained in the past in the young teams, it is the feeling, we do it at the feeling according to the form of players, as we feel it. We also exchange with them on how they feel but coaching is done naturally at the time.
Is the group currently confident?
I think yes, he is confident. It is still necessary that the group is always a little under pressure, it should not be released but I think they also know how to take charge when it is necessary even if I think that there is always need recall bites and to control but they know it very well. In general, they take hold in hand and the group is currently confident.
How did you prepare the match on Friday evening?
We have prepared it since last week since we did not play, so we started to work well in Périgueux. We are on the continuity of putting volume of play as well as putting our game in place so we have prepared it as a usual match even if, in itself, it is not necessarily usual.
Do you rather think of locking 5th/6th or do we aim 3rd/4th?
There are 2 games left and we know that if we are already going on the right side with this one, we will see a little more clear.
Isn’t a dam at home?
No, it’s not neutral in all directions, it’s clear. It is also something important for the club but as I said, before projecting itself on all this, it is Périgueux to play on Friday evening and, as we saw last week as well as when they went to beat Narbonne at home, it’s solid. It is a team that masters what they are doing, they master it to perfection so it is up to us to answer what they are doing. I think we are a little different teams but what they do, they do it very, very well.
Speaking of master’s degree, I imagine that there will be a focus discipline on this particular match?
Yes, there will be a focus discipline. We make too many mistakes, this is a fact and that is what costs us the match at Marcq-en-Barœul and if we are not disciplined enough in the future, it will play tricks on us, especially onourse matches as it happens. There will be no emergency wheel, these are matches where, if you lose, it’s simply finished so, on this kind of match at stake, you have to be hyper disciplined. We have a referee who comes every Tuesday in training, on high intensity training, to empower players on that so we hope it will pay over time.
What type of match do you expect on Friday evening, with a big intensity?
Yes, because Périgueux is a team that still has a very, very large pack in front and which is strong on the fundamentals, they also have X factors which allow them to be often in the advance. They are based on that, it’s a team that is very dominant and has a fairly physical game so we know what to expect. I’m not going to unpack everything either, but we know what they are strong on and we also tried to analyze what we can play on Friday evening.
We saw Massy to doubt Périgueux for a quarter of an hour with a 12-0 in 12 minutes last week and you, you had built your offensive bonus against Bourgoin in the first 20 minutes by putting 21 to 0. Is there something to search for it or to work concerning the start of the meeting?
We know that the beginnings are essential, it allows us to see if we are in it or not but a match hard 80 minutes so if we are not in it at the start of the match, we can recover. We necessarily want to start the match well, especially with us in Albi where I think there will be people at the stadium Friday evening so we also want to please the public.
The current negative point is a bit of the infirmary who is the only shadow on the board?
Yes, but we have to do it with it. It is not necessarily easy to manage, we try to develop training as much as possible but it is true that it is a bit difficult because we have important players from the group who are injured.
What about Simeon Soenen who went out on a stretcher in Massy?
Everything will be fine.
Can we just make a little infirmary point to see who are you missing on Friday evening?
I admit that fortunately I have Caro who manages that, she has good skills on it. I have long -standing injuries, Sean Robinson, Paul Clergue, Téo Damital, more recently, JB de Clercq, Baptiste Couchinave, Dimitri Chauvet. So there are a few important players who were injured for the time being.
Are they boys who should come back for the end of the season and possible final stages?
I hope that, I hope so but it is rather the doctors who manage this appearance and we let them do, we do not give up too much. We let them work, they give us the deadlines, if it goes faster, so much the better but it is they who manage it.
Does having opened the stadium to the public on the Tarbes match and that of Périgueux gives you ideas on your post next season?
Yes because the goal is necessarily to bring the maximum of people to the stadium because it is much more alive for everyone and the idea of Jean-Jacques to have Tarbes fill up was a good idea. On Périgueux, we also try to open up to the operation with the city which is the most sporty city so we will invite all the associations of sports life. We will therefore try to make events like that to invite people who do not necessarily come to the stadium so that they simply want to come back. So we’re going to expect this in the future to try to offer a show, I think we have the team and we try to have the game that goes with it to please spectators, it’s also important. We try to decompartmentalize and unlock it all so that it opens to the maximum.
What is the watchword for this “8th finals”?
No cardboard (laughs)!
Interview by Loïc Colombié
Article in partnership with
