After finishing the European Cup Challenge matches, and having lost three in a row, our team was doing a lot of soul searching. Even after the win versus Bourgoin, something had to change when you give up as many points as we did in January. That's exactly what happened, from top to bottom. The coaches changed practices, pre-game warm-up, and in certain areas, systems, while the players came better prepared, mentally and physically.
We went in to Perpignan knowing we had to come away with points. We obviously wanted the win, but even just getting the 1 point bonus loss (when you lose by 7 or less) on the weekend is going to be very important for us. We played a great game, but for about 15 minutes we went away from our game plan and conceded two tries. The first half had a lot of big hits, but not a lot of running rugby (mostly kick and chase). Big Henry Tuilagi (Samoan) was putting in some pounding runs, but our pack was meeting him in pairs to stop him.
It was 12-10 at half, even though they had dominated possession. However, after halftime was when we started to get away from the game plan and that's when they put in two tries. A yellow card to our tight head prop didn't help the issues either. At the 56 minute mark we were down 26-10, and working back into our original strategies. It was looking good when we scored a penalty, and then a try, to make it 26-18, but it was all for not as we let in one more try with no time left to end the game 31-18.
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