Begles (France) (AFP)

The euphoria maintained throughout last season, which remained unfinished because of the pandemic, seems to have left Bordeaux-Bègles in this gloomy autumn in terms of results and fragmented in terms of matches, which prevents re-igniting a positive dynamic.

Undisputed leader of the Top 14 at the start of the pandemic, carried by a gala Matthieu Jalibert, by a Semi Radradra unparalleled creator of play and uncertainties, with a staff having found the levers to bring a club to the top of the bill confined since 2011 in the soft underbelly of the championship ...

All the planets seemed aligned, the semi-finals were in sight.

But everything stopped, net, with the Covid-19 which threw to oblivion the dream of a first final phase, and more if affinities.

And in the spring, in the last four of the European Challenge against Bristol, with Radradra with him and not against - the Fijian has joined the English club in the meantime - the outcome would perhaps have been more favorable.

Cursed, frustrated ... Negative feelings got tangled in the ranks of the UBB, which brooded internally for nearly six months, wondering if the moments of grace lived and now fled would ever resurface.

- "Victim" of the Covid -

It is in this context, tarnished by the crisis which does not allow it to benefit from its usual gauge, the largest in Europe (24,518 spectators on average), that Laurent Marti's club tried to leave, with this deadline European placed entry, from the third match, finally played from the second.

The inaugural match of the season against the Stade Français effectively postponed due to the cluster of the Parisian club, Bordeaux-Bègles approached the European quarter-final against Edinburgh with only one successful trial gallop against Brive (25-20).

Enough to contain the Scots (23-14) yet much more ahead in terms of physics and rhythm.

In the process, the team tied the game for 80 minutes with Bristol (20-20) before overtime, surely too much at this time of the season (17 points conceded, 0 scored), plunged him back into his doubts. .

The defeats followed in Lyon (27-10), without really fighting, and in Pau (29-24) where the Union nevertheless led 16-3 after half an hour.

Delayed ignition or simple return to earth?

"What we lack is winning matches. To win matches, you need an irreproachable state of mind," said Christophe Urios before Pau.

- Urios "loves it" -

"After when you start a dynamic of victories, it's easier. But I want to tell you something: it excites me, this situation", assured the manager.

"My job, it's there. When it's all easy, you can train. Last year, you could have trained, not at the beginning but at the end. There, that's where the we have, if the staff is solid, if our players ... I love that, see how we will react ".

With three losses in a row, away - "and it's not the same", relativizes Urios - the current classification (12th), with two games late, does not matter before the derby Sunday in La Rochelle, in form.

"We do not pay attention", swears Nans Ducuing, several seasons galley in Gironde on the clock.

"There is no panic, sincerely. We did not feel at all that we were in the broth", says the rear in search of good fuel, of this reference match allowing to have a good side.

"We have to refocus, ask ourselves the right questions, everyone question themselves, be on the same line, in tune to perform well and regain that confidence," concludes- he.

The season will be long, probably longer than the previous ones.

© 2020 AFP