The best player in the championship, Antoine Dupont, against his All Black counterpart Tawera Kerr-Barlow; the right pillar of the XV of France Uini Atonio facing his friend Cyril Baille; the titanic Emmanuel Meafou to the test of the monumental Will Skelton… all that the French rugby championship has stars will be on the lawn of the Stade de France (Seine-Saint-Denis), Saturday June 17 at 9 p.m., for the final of the Top 14. Another confrontation will take place at the edge of the field, between two of the best technicians in the country: the Toulousain Ugo Mola and the Rochelais Ronan O’Gara.
The Haut-Garonnais coach holds the Charentais in high esteem. “We were supporters of La Rochelle [pour la finale de Champions Cup, en mai] because we wanted a French team to be champion, declared the Toulousain, Friday June 9, in San Sebastian, in the Spanish Basque Country, before the semi-final of the Toulouse against Racing 92. We were a bit of a scarecrow for a while. Today is La Rochelle, and frankly they deserve it, their game was amazing. »
To this kindness, Ronan O’Gara dryly replied, the next day, that “Ugo Mola’s opinion on Stade La Rochelle was not interesting in the past, is not interesting in the present and will not be interesting in the future”. To which the Toulouse technician replied again, the day before the final: “Sometimes it’s better to be quiet and look like a fool than to talk, so I’m going to be quiet. We want to move the game off the field, but we will stay on the field. The players will be able to do battle, but not the staffs! »
You have to see behind the first compliment from the Toulousain, always skilful in the face of the media, a strategy to send the Rochelais back to the uncomfortable status of favorite. The projection of the Charentais, it must be understood as the reflection of a growing rivalry – even of a tension – between these two technicians, while their clubs fight more and more regularly for the top of the poster. Since 2019, either La Rochelle, or Stade Toulouse, or the two clubs at the same time have reached the final of the French championship or the European Cup.
In 2021, Toulouse inflicted a crushing double defeat on Les Rochelais, in the Champions Cup final and then in the Top 14 final. Between August 2020 and October 2022, the Rouge et Noir defeated the Maritimes nine times in a row. But La Rochelle has just achieved a double (2022, 2023) in the European Cup and it is said, despite the declarations of their coach, that the people of Toulouse had a hard time seeing La Rochelle triumph in the final over Leinster, the team that knocked them out in the semi-finals.
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