Covid, gauge, report … the 15th day against thick and thin

White sunday

Will play, will not play? After much procrastination, the two matches scheduled for Sunday Toulon-La Rochelle (6:00 p.m. and Toulouse-Montpellier (9:05 p.m.) have been postponed due to positive Covid-19 cases.
The RCT and MHR were “unable to perform,” according to the NRL statement.

The trip from La Rochelle (5th, 36 pts) to the harbor had already been postponed from Saturday to Sunday after the detection of “new positive cases” for Covid-19 within the RCT (11th, 22 pts), which had one around twenty.

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Peril gauge

Gauges are making a comeback. In December, the government announced the reinstatement of the gauge limits, set at 2,000 people maximum indoors and 5,000 outdoors, to “slow down the Omicron variant” from January 3 and for three weeks.

Racing 92 will therefore welcome Clermont in its closed Arena with 2,000 spectators, only subscribers and partners. Before the introduction of gauges proportional to the size of the speakers?

Paris storming the fortress

A mountain. The French Stadium (9th, 27 pts) will have a lot to do in front of Castres (4th, 37 pts).
Not only because the OC remains on three successes in a row in the league. Nor because the Parisians have won only one away game this season. But also because the Tarnais have been unbeaten at home since December 2020 and have shown that they knew how to win by snatching the victory in front of Perpignan (20-19) and then hanging on with their fingertips against La Rochelle (31-30) .

“It’s a decisive match to resume our roadmap towards what we want to do this season”, conceded the Parisian manager Gonzalo Quesada.

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BO-Usap, match of death

Woe to the vanquished. The promoted meet for a crucial match between poorly classified, more than ever in search of a success to leave the red zone.

But neither the Perpignanais (13th, 19 pts) nor the Biarrots (14th, 19 pts) arrive calm: the two teams remain on two consecutive losses. “The smallest point will count: the final sprint starts on Saturday,” admitted the Catalan captain Mathieu Acebes.

The BO has not beaten Usap in Top 14 in Aguiléra since … November 2012 and five penalties from Dimitri Yachvili (15-3).

Victory or nothing for Racing 92

Two months that they have not won in Top 14. Racing 92, in great difficulty, is looking for air after four consecutive defeats which leave the Ile-de-France club in a pale 10th place, far from the ambitions of the start of the season.

“If we start to say that we don’t believe it, who is going to believe it in our place? The disaster never brought anything positive, ”insisted coach Laurent Travers. “The road is strewn with pitfalls and we know that people are not going to help us. “Starting with Clermont (7th, 33 pts), who dreams of a second success in a row, after Toulouse (16-13), to climb into the top six.

In the other meetings of the day, Lyon (6th, 35 pts) receives Pau (13th, 28 pts) while Bordeaux-Bègles (1st, 46 pts) goes to Brive (12th, 21 pts) to consolidate his chair as leader .

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