Béziers in commando mode in Aurillac

Comme face à Provence Rugby, les avants seront certainement au centre des débats. Midi Libre – Michael Esdourrubailh

Les Biterrois se savent attendus ce vendredi 28 septembre, dans le Cantal, chez une équipe particulièrement bien rodée aux joutes de la Pro D2.

Aurillac is one of those rugby lands where one enters the oval as one enters religion. With a priesthood, a front eight solid as a rock and always ready to go to the front. So, for having ignored it a bit, many break their teeth in Cantal land, where one should never go with a flower in one's rifle. It is not for nothing that the Cantal club, even if it never makes many sparks, endures and has made a place for itself, over the years, in this Pro D2 championship.

ASBH counts on its forwards

All week, this is what Pierre Caillet and his staff have been repeating to their players who have arguments to put forward when it comes to setting the sixteen-legged assault tank in motion. Moreover, you only have to take a look at the composition of the ASBH team to understand that the fifteen from Riquet's city have decided to put particular emphasis up front: out of the eight substitutes, only scrum-half Damien Añon and centre Maxime Vacquier are three-quarters…

It's going to hit hard

In short, it's going to hit hard on the Aurillac side. And hit hard. Especially since Béziers would like to bring back points from its trip to Cantal, where it will also be necessary to have legs behind and not back down in defense: “Aurillac is a big test for us, assures David Irazoqui, the coach of the Béziers three-quarters.  In order to judge the state of mind of our team and to validate the start of the season, we must play a great match in terms of content. It will be important to respond to the basics of rugby because the Aurillacois have mastered them to perfection. We are going for that. Especially since if their conquest is tough, they also use the foot game very well. They manage, through this, to put a lot of pressure. Aurillac masters a cold rugby adapted to its values."

No overconfidence

This week, in training, the Biterrois insisted a lot on this pressure game in order to try to do everything possible to respond to the Cantaliens at this level. A necessity: "We know very well that if we miss it, the result can only be bad, insists David Irazoqui, cautiously. Our last matches have been positive, but we must not be overconfident at the risk of being punished. We are going to Aurillac to continue to advance. The mistake to make would be to miss out on commitment. It is up to the players to respond present in the fight."

All this while dealing with weather that does not look great with rain.

Béziers : Lorre – Courtaud, Holder, Votu, Reau- (o) Malié, (m) Marques (cap) – Koen, Benoy, Doumenc – Gayraud, Dodson – Judge, Boulassel, Fernandes.
Substitutes: Gonzalez, El Maslouhi, Nkinsi, Van Bost, Van Bost, Añon, Eru, Vacquier, Fincham.

Aurillac: Papunashvili – Simeli, Ofa, Talalua, Oudard – (o) Abzhandadze, (m) Delarue – Tisson (cape), Nonkontwana, De Jong – Bloemen, Masterson – Kartvelishvili, Loughnane, Mchelidze.
Substitutes: Nioradze, Rodgers, Rolland, Slamani, Huurman, Alania, Bastard, Welsh.

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