The French Elite play-offs commence this weekend, with third placed Pia facing Limoux, tied for first, a daunting trip for a club that lost its third Lord Derby Cup final at the weekend. Dominant for an hour, Benoît Albert’s men expended too much energy and in the last quarter handed the game to the Lézignanais. But there’s no time to dwell on the disappointment with Limoux on the horizon. Christophe Moly, the “green-and-reds” scrum-half has been talking about the mood in the Pianenc camp.
What’s the feeling in the squad after the weekend?
After such a defeat, the immediate feeling is disappointment. We believed we could do it until the last moment [when Nicolas Piquemal scored a 78th minute try for Lezignan to clinch the match]. We gave everything during the 80 minutes of the match and can’t have regrets in that regard. Maybe we paid for the intensity and the effort we’d put in during the first half. We dominated for an hour but we didn’t take advantage of that long period of domination. We needed to score more tries to make the game safe and put a wide gap between us and Lézignan. We weren’t able to maintain our rhythm and we cracked physically. The Lézignanais didn’t panic and believed in themselves. Once they’d got in front, their morale soared and Aurélien Cologni’s men finished the game in control.
You travel to Limoux this weekend for the first day of the play-offs. It must be difficult to follow on with such an important game?
After losing a final, no doubt, morale is affected. But we’ve got to turn the page and get back to work. We have to be ready on Sunday if we want to win. Once you’ve tasted the special atmosphere of a final you get a craving for it, and we want to feel that again. I want to remember these play-offs as a special moment. The important thing now is to take one match at a time. Ideally we’d like to win in Limoux but we can afford a defeat in which case we’ll play the winner of Carcassonne and Villeneuve but, honestly. I’m not thinking about such calculations. We need it give everything against Limoux.
Limoux have been consistent all season. It’s a really good team. This is the only team that beat Lézignan twice this season. Obviously it’s a squad we have to take really seriously. They’ve bet everything on the championship after their cup quarter final loss against St Estève-XIII Catalan. Physically, they might be fresher than us as they’ve had the benefit of two weekends’ rest. I hope that we don’t have any injuries. Kane Bentley, our hooker, will be out for three weeks. This is a huge blow for us, but I hope we don’t pick up any more.
