“The referee should have awarded us a penalty,” he lamented after being eliminated at the Stade de France.

Envoy of Bordeaux

Is this a semifinal like your season, with strong bases and a poor offense?
Laurent Rabbitt: Everyone saw the match conditions. We didn’t expose ourselves… We played with our qualities. Unfortunately, we had a bad start to the match and it was easy to give the score to UBB because of our lack of discipline. We reacted well, but we didn’t take advantage of good attacking opportunities to score before halftime. But there were repeated fouls from five meters – I counted six. We knew there would be a lot of factors against us. We knew the situation, we knew the supporters, but we didn’t identify the other supporter from the beginning. This was a big problem for us throughout the game, especially in the last few minutes, when we made a very difficult decision. Not to give us a penalty to shoot. So there were opposing factors, but I’m proud of my team and what they have achieved in almost all the situations against us. It was difficult, it was brutal, but it was at the highest level. UBB needed four semi-finals to reach the final; we will try to earn the right and the credibility to push us to win these games…

In your opinion, the referee should have awarded you a penalty so the game could have gone into overtime?
Yes! Instead, we scored from a corner with a more difficult conversion… On Friday night, Rochelais Nowell was booked for his first counter-attack. For us, six times at the end of the first half and three at the end of the game, the referee finally gave a yellow card. But still no penalty attempt was given… It was complicated for my players. There were a lot of misunderstandings about the referee’s decisions. Even if we realized that we gave Bordeaux points too easily and didn’t get the points we deserved.

READ ALSOTop 14: In the video, Segonds’ failed transformation sent UBB to the finals

Joris Segonds seemed frustrated after his failed transformation…
It’s hard for him. But he has led the team to victory many times. It would be a quick way to make him take the blame for tonight’s defeat. His teammates immediately went to him and told him that we win together and lose together… There are other factors that explain our failure: our bad start, our discipline, our lack of reality like hands at our feet. It is in this area (Offensive Play, Editor’s Note) We have to improve the most, that’s obvious. That will be our goal for next season. Our bases and defense are both very strong, and we have to run the ball more evenly now. We understand our areas of work and will work on them.

“Rory Kocott has been hit or miss and maybe he didn’t perform tonight at the level he was expected to…”

Rory Kockott is not having an easy time…
Rory, we all know him. He alternates between good and not so good. Because he is often targeted, even when things happen that are not good for him, it is difficult for the referee to identify them. But he has been playing Rory for us all season, he has helped us, he has got us to this point. Maybe not tonight at the level expected, but throughout the season, he has played at the level we expected.

Are you still proud of your first season at the Stade de France?
The whole club is very proud of our first season.Rabbitt and Ghezar, Ed.). This is a continuation of the work done by the staff in previous seasons. This is a whole club that is finding its own color and position. SFP must be able to compete for the championship every season. I am also proud to see the enthusiasm of our team continue to grow. But it is not enough. Someone tells the story, someone writes the story. We want to write it.

Comments collected at the press conference