ASBH: against Brive, Samuel Marques and Otunuku Pauta showed the way

Marques et Pauta ont été les moteurs de l'ASBH. Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON

To win its play-off, ASBH was able to rely on a shock duo: its scrum half Samuel Marques, but also its number 8, Otunuku Pauta, in the oven and in the mill.

"It’s in the big matches that we see the great players", says the adage. Although he has already proven it in the past, notably with his selection of Portugal, Samuel Marques has once again shown why he was the talisman of the ASBH this season.
Leader of the pack in front of his big guys to return to the locker room after the warm-up, number 9 got his team on track. An inspired recovery in its 22 meters, which will die five meters from the Corrèze goal, a few kicks behind the CAB defense but above all a skill in the exercise of shooting on goal (6/7).

To lead his team to victory, he was able to rely on Otunuku Pauta, the Tongan third-row center, who arrived this summer from Australia. With his red and blue helmet screwed on his head, which he shares with Van Bost and Arnoldi, the latter announced the color from his first ball with a charge full of conviction on Marcel Van Der Merwe, then a few moments later , following a key. In a meeting where the power of the Brivistes hit the mark, like Tuivuaka on his wing, Pauta was one of the rare Biterrois to compete on each collision.

Nkinsi also showed the way

At the end of the line he was able to benefit from a skipped pass from Gabin Lorre to dive powerfully into the in-goal and score the first Béziers try, at the half-hour mark. Thu.
From the start of the second period, well shifted in his lane, Pauta eliminates the last defender and finds Nicolas Plazy who scores the second Béziers try. The 25-year-old Tongan, who shared number 8 with Sias Koen this season, delivered a high-level score for 80 minutes.

At the end of the match, while the ASBH suffered in a melee against the Corréziens, and came up against a defensive wall, Samuel Marques struggled again, to the left, to the right , to try to find the flaw. Hans Nkinsi, the third great man in this game, was, symbolically, the one who scored the winning try, transformed by Marques, author of 18 points (33-31, 76th). Big men in a big match.

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