Agen jumps 2 positions to #11



After a 4 week hiatus from regular matches, and Agen having won the last two before that, SUA took on the number 11th ranked team, Brive, this weekend. It was an important match because it was our 13th, the half-way point of the season and a middle point to reassess where we are in the standings. We haven't won all season on the road, and for most teams, road wins are rare to begin with.

I realized the boys just flat out played with confidence and aggression, the two simplest things you need to win a match. We were starved of possession all day, but our defense held strong for 80 minutes not letting in a single try (the first time this season); with the final score 30-12. The upside is that our defense is what's winning games, which wasn't the case before, and we have a 3 game winning streak. The downside is that if we play the better teams with only 30% of the ball, we can't expect to win. Either way, there's a lot of confidence building here at Agen, which is something we have been dying for.

We have two games against Rovigo, an Italian club in our pool for the Amlin Cup. Then we have a weekend off before the second half of the season which begins with our home clash against Top seeded Toulouse. It's nice to finally be out of the red, otherwise known as the bottom two teams that get relegated to D2 in the end. But we are only half way through and it's only going to get tougher. Here are the current standings and points:

Toulouse         43

Montpellier      41

Racing Metro   39

Biarritz             38

Toulon             36

Castres            35

Clermont         34

Bayonne          32

Stade Francais 29

Perpignan        28

SUA               20

La Rochelle     19

Brive               19

Bourgoin         10