Like nothing ever happened! While the France team will try to win the Six Nations Tournament on Saturday night against Ireland, the 7th day of the Top 14 is being played out this weekend on the French lawns.
Racing 92 on its way
A week after its important, but narrow victory on the lawn of the Stade Français (25-27) in the derby, Racing 92 will still be traveling this weekend. Laurent Travers’ players go to Castres (6.15pm), a club dear to the heart of the Ile-de-France coach since he had won – with Laurent Labit – the title of champion of France in 2013. For this duel, he will still be deprived of the scrum half Teddy Iribaren, injured in a thigh before the European Cup final two weeks ago. The hinge Maxime Machenaud (31 years old) and Antoine Gibert (22 years old) will therefore be aligned a second time.
Racing will also have to compose without a slew of internationals selected with their selections: the French Virimi Vakatawa, Bernard Le Roux and Camille Chat the Scottish opener Finn Russell, the Argentinian winger Juan Imhoff, the Georgian pillar Guram Gogichashvili.
On the other hand, the Ciel et Blanc club recovers the international Olivier Klemenczak who was not selected for the match with the Blues against Ireland.
A first behind closed doors
While he had so far managed to escape behind closed doors – contenting himself with spectator gauges of 1,000 to 10,000 spectators – the Top 14 will now have to live, for at least a month, with matches without an audience. A sad first then.
“Many French people will not be able to exercise their profession and live their passion in the weeks to come,” confides Clermont coach Franck Azéma. We are lucky, we need to have a behavior and an attitude that allows them to have fun and identify with themselves. If we can offer viewers a little fun during this period, that’s already something. “
It remains to be seen whether the clubs will be able to survive for a long time when their economy depends on 60% of income from matches. “We must keep our sport alive, keep the link”, continues to AFP, the president of Pau Bernard Pontneau who, like his counterparts, awaits the help of the government to partly compensate for the losses suffered since the start of the pandemic. . Aid which is currently only 40 million for the Top 14 and Pro D2 clubs.
The phrase. “We keep this anger at not having finished the work. We worked especially on this aspect of the management of the match ”. Gonzalo Quesada, the manager of the Stade Français who hosts Toulouse on Sunday (9:05 p.m.), about the narrow defeat in the derby.
The number: 2. Like the number of Matchday 7 matches that have been postponed due to too many positive Covid-19 cases among the teams. These are Lyon against Montpellier – three cases within the Lyon workforce – and Bayonne against Toulon – six cases detected among the Basques.
This match has been rescheduled for the weekend of November 21 … during which the championship should have taken a break. Other matches are already planned for this date: Stade Français – Bordeaux-Bègles (1st day), La Rochelle – Racing 92 (3rd), Montpellier – Castres (3rd).
Saturday, 3:15 p.m.
Brive-Clermont
6:15 p.m.
Castres-Racing 92
Bordeaux-Agen
Sunday, 5 p.m.
Pau – La Rochelle
9:05 p.m.
Stade Français-Toulouse
Postponed: Bayonne-Toulon and Lyon-Montpellier
Article original de: www.leparisien.fr
