“What goes through your mind after this second title in the Champions Cup ?
It’s the same feeling as last year, it’s very hard to realize right away. It was an incredible match, we showed a lot of character, winning that way is huge. Me like the whole group, we need to return to La Rochelle, to see our Old Port full to bursting with Rochelais to realize a second time what we have just done. I’m sure we don’t realize, it was crazy in Marseille, I thought I had reached a peak of emotion with the match, it never stops, I hope we’ll ride the wave and enjoy now.
“I think they didn’t respect us. They didn’t look me in the eye when they shook my hand.”
When did you feel Leinster was losing ground?
There were several moments. Already the toss, I think they didn’t respect us. They didn’t look me in the eye when they shook my hand. It’s something you shouldn’t do to us, we have a lot of values in this club, respect is one of them. Then, at 0-17, we managed to reverse the trend, to switch at half-time to 14-23, the dynamic was for us. We decided that the lost finals were over. Now we want trophies. Ronan O’Gara’s speech is good, the match is being played at 23, not a 15, I’m thinking of the front 5 who came in and made us win the match.
Your package before was colossal again…
It’s one of our strengths, but the three-quarters also had a huge game. We knew we wouldn’t give anything today, we didn’t want to use any excuses at the end of the match, it was up to us to surp ourselves, to win the match. We were disappointed several times on mauls. We did not give up once, we went back on mauls at the end of the match until Georges-Henri Colombe tried. »