“We can say that we are playing to stay up”, “Carbonel was very strong”: reactions after Stade Français – MHR

Montpellier didn't find the springs to hold the score in the second half. MHR – Baptiste Soulé

Montpellier looked like they were having a bad day after MHR's defeat at Stade Français (29-20). Joan Caudullo, Arthur Vincent and Christopher Tolofua tried to explain this disappointment this Saturday, October 5.

Joan Caudullo, MHR manager : “It's recurring. We only play one half. We should be able to play two. We have to ask ourselves the right questions, know what we need to improve. But even the first half, strategically, we're not good. We lack precision, the players and us, the staff. We make stupid mistakes, we get annoyed, we push a referee (causing a penalty). We're on the 5th day and we can say that we're playing to stay up, I didn't expect that. We had the means to be in another place. We never talked about being in the top six, given the difficult times, but I thought we would be further ahead of where we are today."

Arthur Vincent, MHR center : “We don't respect what we say, we do good things in the first half but we make stupid mistakes. We are too undisciplined in the second, it can't work. Today, it's zero points, obviously something has to happen. We have to learn to win.

What we need? I don't know, but we're going to have to react. If we don't rebel, if we don't question ourselves… We have to get our heads back in place quickly. There are too many regrets, we don't want them anymore. We need to stop with the regrets."

Christopher Tolofua, MHR hooker : "It's a disappointment for us. We suffered a slump at the start of the second half, with a lot of indiscipline. In setting up the strategy, we didn't know how to put our game in place, get out of our half. In the ruck sector, it was too poor, we lose balls too easily.

We have to find solutions as quickly as possible, we put ourselves in difficulty, we're going to work harder, we're going to be even more demanding, especially when we see the delta of penalties. We need to be more of a killer in the scoring zones, that's what's causing our disappointment.

If the atmosphere is heavy? We're not going to say heavy, we have players who are capable of remobilizing everyone. Accounting-wise, we're in trouble. We must be able to bounce back as quickly as possible."

Stade Français

Romain Briatte, Stade Français third row: “We are extremely relieved. We were behind at half-time but there was no panic. The penalties we took were a surplus of energy, the desire to do well, me first and foremost. These are mistakes that we can erase. We were able to react in the second half, that's nice. Now we have to get going again, it's not over. We are still in the second half of the table. We know what awaits us."