Montpellier will be entitled to a third attempt: never crowned in the Top 14, beaten in the final in 2011 and 2018, the Hérault club qualified on Saturday for the final of the French championship, where it will find Castres, beating Bègles-Bordeaux 19- 10 with efficiency and thoroughness.
Friday’s final at the Stade de France will therefore oppose the first two of the regular season, who have spared themselves the fatigue of the play-offs and have perhaps won their place on a breath of fresh air.
It will also be a remake of the 2018 final, when Castres beat Montpellier 29-13. Seven years earlier, in 2011, the Héraultais had been beaten by Toulouse.
Winner of two European Challenges, the club of billionaire Mohed Altrad is therefore still chasing a first Bouclier de Brennus but its place in the final is already a great reward for its manager Philippe Saint-André, who relaunched the club after a last season spent at fight to maintain.
“We are invited to the table, we will see who will eat the dessert“, smiled the former captain of the XV of France on Friday. He is for his people and they offered him to each other after a controlled match, during which they left only crumbs for UBB and finally concluded by two huge penalties from more than 50 meters from young substitute scrum-half Gela Aprasidze.
These six points wrote the conclusion of this semi-final and definitively put their heads under water for the Béglo-Bordelais, who did not score a single point after the 17th minute.
Starting at a very good pace, balanced and indecisive before being much messier, the first period had already been rather Montpellier and the advantage of the MHR at the break (13-10) was not stolen.
However, the first points of the match went to UBB via a penalty from Maxime Lucu, but from the next engagement, the Héraultais scored a good try by winger Vincent Rattez, served by Paolo Garbisi at the end of the line (6th , 7-3).
The other Montpellier points of the first period were scored on two drops, one clever and unexpected from Garbisi (13th) and the other, just before the return to the locker room, much further away and signed Anthony Bouthier (40th).
The players of Philippe Saint-André therefore made their phases of domination bear fruit while the Bordelais scored a happy try, recovering a ball lost by the hooker of the MHR Guilhem Guirado who had just stamped three opponents.
At the time, Matthieu Jalibert’s first defensive kick looked like a save who can, but it ended up full axis in the free space and turned into a try after a footballer’s ball drive from the Béglo-Bordeaux opener (16th).
What followed was tense and suffocating, like the atmosphere in Nice, where the players were very hot. The two teams have long engaged in a battle of occupation kicks and a candlelight festival.
But still, Montpellier defended very well and were never put out of position, with Aprasidze’s right foot then doing the rest. In the end, it is difficult to know how much weight the outburst of anger from Bordeaux coach Christophe Urios weighed against his players before the play-off won against Racing.
On Friday, he presented it as an old manager’s trick that allowed to raise a wind of “rebellion“among his own.”I think it can last three games“, he had hoped. It was finally only one, and it is insufficient.
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