How the defense and the Oyonnax bench tilted the barrage against Valence-Romans

Fabien Fortassin, the Drôois manager, is undoubtedly the best placed to analyze the reasons which allowed Oyonnax to overturn a match which his team had nevertheless launched perfectly by granting itself for more than half an hour the triple advantage of the mark, the occupation and the possession. To do this, the Drôme technician simply targeted an action in the 50th minute of the match. “We are in a strong moment near the Oyonnax line, in a position to score while the score is 13 to 11. The Oyonnax defense recovers the ball in the maul and on the restart Reybier, having just entered the game, scores a try which makes us lose contact.”The defense of Oyonnax, with only one try conceded, after video refereeing, on a collective action from the Drômois, and the quality of the Andean bench with two tries scored by entrants (Reybier and Oz) out of the four scored in the second act, weighed heavily in the balance of this play-off match.

Fourth defense of the championship

Fabien Cibray validates the observation. “Last week I attended the National final, like some of our players. I asked them what made Narbonne win, everyone told me the substitutes. It was this speech that I gave to the players at half-time, telling them, this evening our bench will make the difference. Against Valence-Romans the entrants will give us They brought their freshness. They allowed us to reorganize our game. During one half we overplayed a little by looking for width, by taking the option of long passes. We had to bring something different, bring electricity. That’s what the players who were on the bench did. to return to a more central game. We are lucky to have such a deep squad, with real unity, real homogeneity. The energy coming from the bench consolidated the efforts made since the start of the match.

The defense (fourth in the championship) also largely contributed to the Oyomen’s qualification. “We were very resilient near the lines. During final phase matches, defenses often take the upper hand. We made a big point in this sector of the game because Valence-Romans is a team that plays very well and has the ability to keep the ball. Our defense allowed us to to recover balloons, to hold back in our weak times”, sums up the Aindinois manager, convinced that these two assets could count again against the Vannes.