Still undefeated in its Hameau stadium, runner-up to Toulouse, two points behind the triple French champions before moving to the penultimate Montauban, Pau has had an idyllic start to the season and continues to seduce despite a very young squad. The Section’s recipe works wonders and the people of Pallo can dream of very good things this year.
In its Santa Claus list, Pau would do well to ask for the same performance in the Champions Cup as in the Top 14. Since the start of the season, this irresistible Sanction has been operating at full speed. Thanks to its new improved victory (53-33) on Sunday evening, at home against La Rochelle, at the end of the 11th day of the championship, these Palois who had afforded themselves the luxury during the last day of bringing down on their lawn at the Chaban-Delmas stadium a UBB team which had won everything there since the restart, scored a third victory.
Only beaten three times in the current financial year, the Béarnais take the opportunity to continue to jostle at the top of the ranking with Toulouse, which is ahead of them by only two points, before moving to Montauban, penultimate, during the next day while the triple champions of France will go to Lyon, another poorly ranked (12th).
Certainly the hit of this start, Pau looks like an extra-terrestrial on his lawn at Le Hameau, where he is still undefeated and where he made the… Toulouse residents (30-26) drink on October 18.
Arfeuil: “We’re not just teammates, we’re friends”
But this new Section, which has been a bit of a disaster so far, is much more than a team that is unplayable in front of its home crowd. Also on the road (three defeats), Sébastien Piqueronies’ players leave practically nothing in their path. The feat against the Girondins last weekend attests to this. Nothing seems to scare today this group of friends who can find themselves dreaming of going very far.
Grégoire Arfeuil, questioned about Canal Plus Sunday, confirms that the recipe draws well beyond rugby currently. “We’re not just teammates, we’re friends. We see each other off the field and on the field, we are ready to sacrifice for each other.” Like the very young Fabien Brau-Boirie (19 years old), author of a double against the Rochelais, the team has been greatly rejuvenated, particularly at the three-quarter level (23 years old on average) and it is all the better for it.
An impregnable fortress, young shoots who only want to make the Section grow and this game in the air which drives all their opponents crazy (“It’s something that we work on. It’s a real duel. High balls are what rugby really wants, you have to keep working on them”), Pau no longer seems to have any limits. Le Hameau has not finished enjoying.
