Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin 10:07 p.m., January 3, 2023
This is the surprise of the first half of the Top 14 championship. Fifth in the standings, Aviron Bayonnais can now revise its ambitions upwards.
An exceptional guest on the program "Europe 1 Sport", club manager Grégory Patat was delighted with these very good results.
Aviron Bayonnais never ceases to amaze.
Manhandled last weekend during the 14th day of Top 14, the players of Bayonne managed to come back 13 points behind against Toulon (23-18) and therefore to offer themselves a seventh victory in a row to Jean- Dauger.
Good results that allow Aviron Bayonnais to reach fifth place in the Top 14 at mid-season, to the delight of club manager Grégory Patat, guest on the
Europe 1 Sport program
(every evening from 20 hours to 11 pm): "There is regularity in the results, especially at home, so it's very good for our group and for the confidence in acquiring support," said the latter.
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"A Proud Group"
And for Grégory Patat, this place is deserved: "We are a group proud to be where we are and we want to prove to all rugby connoisseurs that we deserve our place in this Top 14 which creates an energy additional at the group level."
For Jérôme Papin, "they didn't steal the results, it's the result of experience. It's a club that has gone back and forth between the Pro D2 and the Top 14 and therefore has nurtured these round trips an experience. And the experience serves not to reproduce the errors of the past."
An experience which therefore allows the Bayonnais to avoid the mistakes of the past.
But the players are also carried by the fervor of their supporters.
"There is a particular environment when you come to Jean Dauger. Certainly that carries the players", assured Grégory Patat in
Europe 1 Sport
.
“There is an identity that is being reborn, a Bayonne identity,” confirmed Jérôme Papin.
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An experienced recruiter
Aviron Bayonnais can also count on its summer recruits, some of them very experienced, like the arrival of Camille Lopez last summer.
"We wanted to bring in experienced players," explained Grégory Patat.
A recruitment wanted by the president of the club Philippe Tayeb whose management is praised by the staff of the club as explained by Grégory Patat: "He gives blind confidence to the staff. He lets the people in place work and everyone is in their field. competence and that is important."
Bayonne, which aimed to maintain at the start of the season, can now aim higher, and why not a qualifying place for the play-offs at the end of the season.