Is Three Consecutive Wins a Historic Feat for the SOC?

An unknown no longer exists, it is that the SOC (9^e , 52 points) needs to win everything over the last five days to keep its improbable, there are still two days, chance of top 6 and qualification. But he has never been able to chain three successes in a row.

It is two (against Hyères 32-10 and Narbonne 24-17), and the only time he had been in such a position, after his successes in Narbonne and Nice, he failed at home against Bourgoin. This is where the big unknown lies. By mimicry with the situation of November 2022, an “off” week came to cut this semblance of positive dynamics. Will the SOC be able to restart their game against Nice and put a rival for the top 6 behind them (Nice is 8^e with 53 points), after Narbonne?

The melee rendezvous

On the way out, facing the heaviest scrum of National (1000 kg) and which often uses a third pillar as a hooker, the Chambériens showed a deficit of weight (more than 100 kg) and experience too, with on the left the first matches in one of Pierre-Mathieu Fernandes and Enzo Segui against, among others, the New Zealand pillar James Johnston (37 years old, 140 kg, ex-Harlequins in England).

And yet, the Nice scrum had very often been sanctioned and had opened the doors to the first exploit of the season outside the Savoyards (12-6, 12 points at the foot of Dorrival). It will still be one of the key points of the return match. But the Chambéry fray has since found regularity in its outfit, guaranteed in particular by its titular pillars Pertaïa and Clermont. The only problem, the Argentine pillar Lautaro Saisi is still absent after Narbonne: he is in Italy as part of his naturalization procedure.

The infirmary: Triki leaves, De Rémur enters

During the cut, the SOC recovered only one element in its group of 23, the 3^e Mattéo Triki line, hit in the shoulder against Hyères (where the Spanish international had scored a try). But the SOC lost for the end of the season the flanker Pierre-Nicolas Dance (operated on the affected knee against the Varois) and, for this match, his hooker Gauthier Bruté de Rémur (blow to the ribs in training).

The group of 23 Chambériens:

Clermont, Gonzalez; Primault, Reig ; Pertaïa, Audoire ; Grenod (cap), Guyot, Astier; Coignat, Triki, Lebian, Cerqueira; (m) Dufau, Nocete; Pisano, Moreno (o) ; Sao, Goneva, Blanc, Nennig; Dorrival, Hecquet.