On October 22, the life of 28-year-old Dacquois third line Arnaud Aletti took a special turn with the arrival of his first child. In the life of a professional athlete, the sometimes unreasonable carelessness which makes one take all the risks is often confronted with the arrival of a being for whom the notion of responsibility takes a completely different measure. “I’m not going to say anything original, but it’s a great joy to experience the arrival of your first child. She took a bit of a wait, but in the end, the delivery was very quick and she arrived in seven minutes! We have to adapt to new benchmarks that we don’t always master…”, confirms little Giulia’s dad.
The one who shares the captaincy with the experienced Jean-Baptiste Barrère was left at the bedside of his partner and his daughter for the last two matches. “I missed a large part of the week before Brive and the staff preferred to restart me slowly by putting me 24th (player, first out of group, Editor’s note) against Nice. It’s important to be there at the beginning and I was able to take advantage of it. »
“If I have difficult times, I will surely have a little thought for Giulia”
Pragmatism and commitment
However, those who experience their sixth season in Dax do not lose track of the season they are experiencing. It is with lucidity that he analyzes the latest performances of his team “We have in mind this series of three matches without the slightest point (Angoulême, Agen, Oyonnax) which put an end to a promising start. We keep the feeling of not being far from the goal, but in the end, we find ourselves with zero points taken in the standings, it’s frustrating! Against Oyonnax, we had a good match, finding ourselves in the fight and the coherence of our game. I want to say that, paradoxically, the match in Brive could serve as a benchmark performance, especially away from home. We are able to win and I think we must keep this state of mind in mind,” says the man who will be captain in Béziers.
On the Béziers pitch, the third wing line wants to draw inspiration from the performances of the SA XV and Nice in Dax.
Isabelle Louvier / SO
To prepare for this difficult trip to Hérault, the team also has in mind their last two home matches, against teams who traveled with an adapted game plan. “Whether it’s against Angoulême or Nice, we realize that with pragmatism and commitment, we can make the home team doubt. You also have to take inspiration from it,” explains one of the leaders of the Landes group for several seasons.
Tense context
Before this trip to Béziers, the young father remembers the last two confrontations between the two historic clubs. “In the first leg, we got off to a good start (12-9 at half-time, Editor’s note) to end up taking the lead in the second (40-14, Editor’s note). For the return match, Béziers moved to the end of an almost undefeated block. We had a slightly crazy scenario and had a slightly crazy match against the runner-up. (57-20 victory, Editor’s note). We suspect that this last match will be present in their heads. »
“As Jean-Baptiste Barrère (24th for this match and former Biterrois) reminded us, their club is going through a special moment (two players laid off for domestic violence, Taleta Tupuola and Hans Nkinsi, and captain Samuel Marquès targeted for inappropriate behavior during La Nuit du rugby in Paris, Editor’s note). They relaunched against Angoulême last weekend (29-13) and we can expect a big match from them, in a tense context, continues Arnaud Aletti. We will have to show control because we lacked efficiency in the scoring areas. We have been sanctioned a lot in recent weeks. We have worked on it and above all we must send the right signals on the pitch. In Béziers, it will take an extra bit of soul to force destiny. For my part, if I have difficult times, I will surely have a little thought for Giulia. »
