Top spot has been secured after a faltering yet comfortable win against Chalon, just down the road from Dijon. After ten minutes, they thought they were in for a shot at a win but a couple of quick tries put paid to their early keenness. We never really looked back, even if our level of intensity slipped and the game became a scrappy poor-quality affair with neither team looking like scoring.
I spent most of the game panting like a St Bernard in the Nevada Desert. It was hot, too hot, sweat was dripping into my eyes and the glare didn’t seem to be affecting everyone else like it was me.
Still, I had a pleasingly average game. We profited well from 2 nicely judged up and unders, passes went to hand and nailed all the conversions. We had a new centre combination and were missing our fireball of a flanker who always adds some zip around the pitch so it was a decent enough result, even if we did let in a try right on the final whistle.
As a result of our frustrations near the end and out of respect to the tradition, we didn’t perform the chasse a l’ours as we didn’t feel our performance merited it. I made the point to a couple that I had actually been quite worried about this game. In every team I’ve played in, the week after a huge victory is an incredibly tricky one. The Racing professionals lost in Bayonne in a similar situation and I felt that we might fall victim today to a team who had beaten Clermont earlier in the season.
So it’s satisfying to have wrapped up a bonus point win. We can now look forward to Stade Francais next week before a much-needed 2 week break.
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