Top 14: game at half mast, inconsistency, loss of influence... Clermont is indeed a monument in danger

“Clermont, a monument in danger.” The article published on the RC Toulon website last February had greatly irritated Christophe Urios. And triggered a small diplomatic crisis between the two clubs, great rivals in the early 2010s. Except that the observation is clear: ASM - which hosts Bordeaux-Bègles this Friday - is indeed a monument in danger. A team crowned champion of France in 2010 and 2017 but which has really lost its splendor since then. Checkered results, chronic inconsistency and an image that has deteriorated significantly. Since its final lost in 2019 against Toulouse, the Auvergne club has no longer qualified for the final phases of the Top 14. While it remained, for example, in eleven qualifications in a row between 2007 and 2017. End of reign. ..

And this season seems to be starting on the same basis. With its quality workforce, the ASM is connected to alternating current. Capable of full matches like other much more ordinary ones. The Christophe Urios touch is struggling to make itself felt. When it is not the conquest that is failing, it is the attack that is coughing. It's a lot. Last weekend, it was on the Hameau lawn, against the Section Paloise, that the Jaunards faltered (22-11). A rather amorphous Clermont team in the first period.

“There was no speed, but slow rucks, slow transmissions, easy mistakes... What we missed was the quality of the play at the foot of Pau, which was very good and which kept us at home,” noted the Auvergne manager at La Montagne. Same frustration for opener Anthony Belleau: “We experienced a first period without rhythm, a little better in the second period with sequences which allowed us to come back. There is frustration not to bring anything back from this meeting and to have chased the score all match.

Also read: Top 14: “Urios is not an Irish coach”, O’Gara criticizes the way he is treated by referees

Accustomed to rants, the former mentor of Oyonnax, Castres and UBB alternates, this season, the stick and the carrot. In Pau, he welcomed the entry of his replacements: “The guys who came off the bench brought a lot of desire, a lot of energy and this desire not to suffer. What I like about guys who come off the bench is this desire to refuse defeat because they almost overturned the match. Other times, he can be more brittle. “I didn’t see what I wanted to see and I saw what I didn’t want to see. There is still work to do,” he said after the setback in Lyon (41-22). After the setback at home against RC Toulon, this time he expressed his mea culpa. “This defeat is for me. It's my responsibility, we had poor management during the week. We trained poorly, we weren't able to do this week as we wanted, once again, it's my responsibility. We had two good matches (success against Bayonne and Montpellier, Editor's note), we were unable to follow up with a third, it's my fault.

Never this season has Clermont managed to achieve three wins in a row. The mini-series (there are three) all stopped at two victories. Hence this feeling, recurring in recent seasons, of inconstancy, of chronic feverishness. Latest outing to date, like an admission of helplessness: it’s the referees’ fault! “Since the start of the season, we have been poorly refereed. People will say that I'm complaining, but it's the truth. I haven't said anything until now but that's enough now. We need to be respected.” Are we back to degraded status? Certainly. The ASM is not refereed as a small team, but as a team which is not considered dominant. What Julien Laïrle, assistant in charge of the Auvergne forwards, recently recognized: “We don't have an ultra-dominant scrum because the referees think that we are cheating, that we are at fault. They often target Rabah (Slimani), it bothers me a little..."

More problematic, Clermont has lost its offensive efficiency. Under the leadership of Vern Cotter who arrived in Auvergne in 2006, the Auvergnats had developed a flamboyant and effective offensive game, even becoming a reference in this area in the same way as Stade Toulousain. A time gone by... Before the 11th day, Clermont is only eighth in the ranking, with a record just barely balanced (five wins as many defeats) but, of the first eight teams in the Top 14, it is the the only one to have a negative points difference (-8). With the worst attack (225 pts) and the worst defense (233) of the eight leading teams.

The daily La Montagne has done the math: whatever happens on Friday evening against UBB, the results for 2023 will be negative. So far, the Auvergne club has recorded 13 victories and conceded 16 losses. No better than former manager Jono Gibbes in 2022: 15 wins, 17 defeats and one draw. The situation has therefore not changed. Christophe Urios may honk his famous horn, but the machine coughs and advances in slow motion. “If the situation affects my fighting spirit? Not at all, on the contrary. I find myself very, very patient because the answers I have in front of me are not the ones I expect. On the other hand, like the players and the staff, I am in compromise. And that pisses me off.” And the players, are they starting to get bored too?