La Rochelle-Toulon: an unexpected suspense, the indiscipline of Toulon... The tops and the flops

TOPS

What a closing match for this 22nd day of Top 14! More than 40 minutes of effective play is rare enough to be highlighted. And until the last minute, both teams pushed, doubted and tried. Toulon's performance was surprising. The Toulon coach, Pierre Mignoni, had however cooled the executives. Serin, Tolofua and Ribbans on the bench, Jaminet not even on the trip. It sounded like a difficult match for the Varois, who almost carried out the heist they had come for. The Toulonnais chained turnovers in the first period, uninhibited, before finally coming under pressure from the decisive Rochelais at the end of the two periods.

They managed to make the Toulonnais bend and as we saw, it was not as easy as that. The three tries came from pillar Atonio and third lines Botia, who scored his 200th with Stade Rochelais, and Jégou, who replaced Boudehent. La Rochelle's achievements also came after big sequences close to the lines. Decisive phases of play in the victory of the Yellow and Black, this Sunday evening, at Marcel Deflandre.

FLOPS

The Toulon staff's plan, which was to bring in the usual starters in the second half to make the difference in the event of a favorable scenario, narrowly failed. No doubt because of too much indiscipline. Three yellow cards, and the toll could have been heavier, especially after a succession of high tackles. But Jean-Baptiste Gros, Setariki Tuicuvu and Jules Coulon weighed down their team this Sunday evening. With this defeat, the Toulonnais are the big losers of this day, even if the starting line-up suggested that the Toulonnais were coming to the Stade Marcel Deflandre to suffer.

In addition to being undisciplined, they lost everything this Sunday evening. One gesture could have changed everything, however. In the 74th minute, while his charges were trailing by three points (20-17), Pierre Mignoni showed the posts after a penalty collected by his players. The latter felt too beautiful, wanted to go and get the test. Obviously, the ball was lost on the sidelines. Three minutes later, La Rochelle scored a major success in the race for the final stages by depriving Toulon of the defensive bonus point.