The reactions after the Toulon vs. Clermont game.
Here are the main declarations after the game against Clermont, last Sunday, at the Mayol stadium, which our men in red and black won 23-21.
Mourad Boudjellal, RCT chairman: “I think I’m reaching the end of something with the RCT. I find it more and more difficult to go through all this. From an emotional point of view, it’s very tough. I lost some of my own money – much – for the sake of the club. I wanted to help the club but, today, it’s becoming a nightmare. Am I going to sell the club? I’ve always said I wouldn’t make a commercial operation out of it. Otherwise, I would have made the sale before. I think it’s my last season as chairman. I am worn out, because I take many blows. So, what the hell am I doing here, especially with people who never made a gamble with their money? I’d like to live another life.”
Diego Dominguez, RCT manager: “Our first half was excellent, but we were all over the place in the second one. We put the pressure on ourselves. Clermont are a good side: they never give up and play rugby very well. This was a crucial victory for the players and the supporters. But, because of our terrible second half, we could have lost that game. We snatched victory with our hearts. It wasn’t an easy game. The players had to run, the team slogged its guts out. Even if we didn’t play well in the second half, we deserved victory overall.”
Anthony Etrillard, RCT hooker: “The pressure was on us to get a good result. The reactions to victory were quite over the top, because it was a tough game. We knew it, but we won! This is good for the team. We dominated the first half: we could have scored two more tries, but we lacked the finishing touch. We hesitated for fifteen minutes, but then we strove to get back into the game. In the future, we’ll have to be more incisive on the moves that could earn us a try. The game against Montpellier is going to be a tense one and we’re looking forward to it.”
Laurent Delboulbes, RCT left prop: “We went through every emotion. It was important to win the game. We were aggressive and this was the difference-maker. We persisted without yielding anything. Thanks to the win, there will be less pressure in the following days. When we were trailing by five points, we had the merit not to lose courage. We came back with our own strength. We persevered. We tightened things up in the frontline and they were harmed. For our team and the public, we’re really happy about this victory, even if there’s nothing spectacular to it. Now, we’ll have to work even harder. But, in Toulon, everything is going very fast, one way or the other.”
Franck Azéma, Clermont manager: “We could have earned far more than the bonus point. Our first half was quite poor. In the end, we really played 35 minutes over the whole game. It’s all right to earn a bonus point, but we could have done better. We lacked efficiency in kicking and we gave the ball away at the very end. But, prior to this, 79 minutes had been played, so we’re not going to say we lost because of this mistake. But we suffered when there was contact and we didn’t dominate the game, either in attack or in defence.”
Sources: after-game press conference, Var-Matin, L’Equipe, Sport365.