Reactions after HBC Nantes – MHB: “When we have the opportunity to destroy them, we don't succeed”, “They only have ourselves to blame”

Les Montpelliérains ont eu trop de déchets. MAXPPP – Marc Roger

Beaten in Nantes (29-26), the MHB players blamed themselves after a match where too much waste did not allow them to hope for better.

Montpellier

Karl Konan, defender and pivot of the MHB: “Of course, we feel a lot of frustration. Because we have the game in hand compared to previous years. We really had it. We made some pretty divisive mistakes in the second half. We stuck to the system we had put in place. And everything was going well.

We weren't lucid in the key moments of the match. Frankly, we can only blame ourselves for this defeat. We were the ones who failed. And Nantes took advantage of it. Clearly, I think there was room. If we stayed clean in attack, on the ball runs, on the retreats, I think there was room. And the whole squad believed in it. That's what allowed us to play such a match. But there you go, it will serve as a lesson to us. The championship is still going to be long. It's the fourth match, it's not over, we're still in the race.”

Charles Bolzinger, MHB goalkeeper:“It's a bit of the same scenario every year. I feel like we're in contact. And when we have the opportunity to destroy them, we don't succeed. And so, it's a bit frustrating to relive this for a while. It's frustrating because we have them in hand.

We start the match very well but then we get caught up straight away. And there you go, 18 turnovers too… Did we manage the pace well too ? I don't know. After that, it's lost. But it's still long. It's the fourth day. And there are still a lot of things that will happen. “

Valentin Porte, captain of the MHB:“The game is played perfectly from A to Z. Defensively, offensively. We have the aggression where we wanted it. We have the saves because we bring them where we want it… It was perfect. But we make I don't know how many turnovers. 18 ? We can't hope to do anything. We have 18 stops, they have 7. We make 18 turnovers… It's clearly our fault. We give them the ammunition. (3:25) We give them all the ammunition while they are dying."

Nantes

Grégory Cojean, coach of HBC Nantes : "I feel proud to see my team play like that, with these values. Defensively, it was our best performance. The team was valiant. The only small downside is that we can kill the game a little earlier, we have this guilty pleasure of not knowing how to kill a game. There were saves by the goalkeepers, it was a very, very high-level match, it went very quickly. The first half was very intense and of very high quality.

The second was something else but we were very solid throughout the game. They made us look too good too quickly and they buried us too quickly. But that's how it works now, it's going very, very quickly. The season is going to be very long, we're going to have to be consistent throughout the season. We're going to lose points but we won't be the only ones.”