DECRYPTION – With cas­ca­ding inju­ries, a leaky defence, too much indis­ci­pline, a conquest yet to be sta­bi­li­zed and some­thing lacking at the begin­ning of second halves, FC Grenoble rugby is strug­gling in the Top 14, in last place after seven days. During the match against Bayonne on Saturday 8^th October (6:30pm), FCG has no alter­na­tive but to pre­vail, at the risk of fur­ther rui­ning its chances of staying in the French rugby elite.

Grenoble plays part of its future in the Top 14 against Bayonne on Saturday 8^th October. The FCG, a red light on its ran­king with only six points, must win against the Aviron Bayonne team, also in the rele­ga­tion zone with just eight points. “We have abso­lu­tely no right to error”, confirms Bernard Jackman, mana­ger of Grenoble.“We must play a great game to release us from this pres­sure. It’s really a pivo­tal match. We’re aware of this and we’re really going to give it our best.”

Scrum-half David Mélé (left) and some of the Grenoble for­wards, during the match against Pau on 24^th September, 2016. © Laurent Genin

Why is Grenoble, defea­ted six times in its first seven matches, under threat of rele­ga­tion at the end of sea­son ? Here are answers.

Absences due to injury of major players

Grenoble had around 19 inju­red players in its squad, before going to Castres on 18^th September (46−9). Again, this week, fif­teen players are out due to inju­ries, for the cru­cial game against Bayonne, inclu­ding major players : Arnaud Héguy a hoo­ker, Hendrik Roodt in the second line, Rory Grice in third line centre posi­tion. They are des­pe­ra­tely mis­sed by the FCG team, as are the scrum-half, Charl McLeod, and the full­back, Gio Aplon.

Back from a ham­string injury, Mahamadou Diaby, again inju­red his left pec­to­ral, during trai­ning on 4^th October. © Laurent Genin

Bad luck has befal­len the Isère club. Back for only two weeks after a ham­string injury, the third liner Mahamadou Diaby, at the gates of French team this sum­mer, was hit in the left pec­to­ral on Tuesday 4^th October during trai­ning. “We’re not having much luck and we have a pretty elderly team ; the risk of injury is higher”, explains Bernard Jackman. “If you do nothing, you’ll never get hurt, but you’re going to suck too. We have tried to improve the phy­si­cal abi­lity of the group to be able to finish the sea­son strong. Currently, there are a lot of inju­red players, but they will be back. The majo­rity will play 18 games this sea­son. They will be fresh. It’ll help us later in the season.” 

The Irish hope FCG will get over the Bayonne obs­tacle suc­cess­fully, then take advan­tage of the two European weeks to begin to reco­ver its forces.

Big pro­blems in defence

Grenoble miss out on too many points. This is nothing new, but the solu­tions are slow to be found. In 26 cham­pion­ship matches last sea­son, FCG fini­shed 12^th in defence, out of 14, conce­ding 779 points. During the first seven days of the 2016 – 2017 sea­son in the Top 14, its already conce­ded 228 points, ave­ra­ging more than 32 per mee­ting. A red light is fla­shing for Grenoble in this sta­tis­ti­cal category.

Before going to Toulouse (31−3) on 1^st October, the Isère team under­took a lot of work in this area, which conti­nued this week. Even though some posi­tive signals were noted in the Pink City, with no points recor­ded for Toulouse in the last thirty minutes, they need to be stron­ger against Bayonne.

Too many cards

The left pillar of FCG, Alisona Taumalolo, tries to find the flaw in the Brive defence. He will be expel­led during this game. © Laurent Genin

Grenoble are regu­larly out­num­be­red. In seven games, FCG has already recei­ved eight yel­low cards and two red ones. In this clas­si­fi­ca­tion, it is second to last. If only it had shown the cou­rage and soli­da­rity, as when faced with Brive (36−23), pre­vai­ling des­pite the expul­sions of Alisona Taumalolo and Nigel Hunt, at other times. The dis­ci­pline of the Grenoble team must be clo­sely moni­to­red. Already in a hot water, FCG really don’t need to put spokes in the wheels at the moment.

Too much inconsistency

Even though in the face of La Rochelle (19−22) and Pau (38−39), des­pite the defeats, and against Brive in the first per­iod, the Grenoble scrum per­for­med well, it found itself suf­fe­ring ter­ri­bly on the out­side, nota­bly in Lyon (32−13) and Castres (46−9). Even in touch, some­times, the team was wan­ton. The absence of Héguy, Roodt and Grice affec­ted the per­for­mance of the Grenoble conquest.

Even though the FCG scrum (right) mana­ged to stand up to its oppo­nents, Pau, the eight Isère front liners have not hand­led other mee­tings very well. © Laurent Genin

Badly star­ted second halves

Too often, Grenoble is not ready when they return from the locker room. In its first match at the Alps sta­dium against La Rochelle, FCG was lea­ding, 13 – 12 at half­time, before a conver­sion (50^th), led to 13 – 19. La Rochelle could not be bea­ten thereafter.

In Lyon and Castres, domi­na­ted, Grenoble conce­ded a try in the first minutes of the second per­iod, both times. But, the most stri­king example is still the match against Pau. FCG see­med to hold all the cards, with a 13-point lead, at half time, but conce­ded 10 points in 10 minutes at the begin­ning of the second half. It bowed at the end.

Finally, in Toulouse, lea­ding by 17 – 3 at half time, the Isère club also conce­ded 14 points in 12 minutes. Against Bayonne, it must not fall asleep in the dres­sing room, under threat of a huge disappointment.

Laurent Genin

Traduction from Speak English Center

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