Perpignan reflect on shock reversal
The Italians’ victory has made qualification from the group extremely difficult for the French champions, and in the aftermath of the defeat some of the Perpignan players are openly questioning team spirit.
“We thought it would be easy, we were wrong,” said Perpignan hooker Marius Tincu.
“In the second-half we went under – we weren’t able to get out of our own half – thanks to their kicking game, they were able to send us back into our own half all the time.”
Centre Maxime Mermoz agreed with his team-mate: “We didn’t know how to play intelligently – Treviso damaged to us tactically.”
Perpignan manager Jacques Brunel had warned against taking Treviso for granted the previous week when asked about possible margins of victory for the French side: “A bonus point? No – we have to play well, win and show a victorious side.”
Brunel’s warnings were well founded. Despite annexing the French title last season, Perpignan have stuttered this term domestically, with defeats to Montpellier (18-12) and Bourgoin (17-6) and a hammering at the hands of Biarritz (27-12) the week before their Italian misadventure.
“That makes it several occasions on which we’ve lost encounters of this type,” said Brunel.
“We haven’t been able to get field position and put pressure on the opposition – on the contrary, when it comes to pressure we’re the ones who are folding.”
Tincu added: “I have the impression that we don’t have the same spirit that we had last year. I don’t know where it’s gone, but over the weekend we touched bottom.”
Winger Christophe Manas said: “When you lose the first pool game against the so-called weakest team in the group you give the impression of abandoning the rest of the competition, in particular when you still have Munster and Northampton left to confront.
“It’s now necessary to win our next five games, so you can imagine the size of the task which faces us.”
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