The years pass, and the Rochelais settle at the top of European rugby. Large winners of the Exeter Chiefs (47-28), the Maritimes qualified for their third consecutive Champions Cup final, Sunday April 30, in Bordeaux. They will find an old acquaintance there, Leinster, whom they beat last season to clinch their first continental title. The Irish won their ticket to the final by disposing of Stade Toulouse (41-22) on Saturday.
If the Leinstermen will have the advantage of the ground since they will host this match for the title on their lawn of the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, the Stade Rochelais did everything on Sunday to remind their rivals that they were the last club to have hung a European champion star on his jersey. “We are having a very good match, even if we have things to settle for the final in Dublin”, underlined all the same the third line Grégory Aldritt at the end of the meeting at the microphone of France 2.
“But it’s good, we’re not having our best game yet. We are big competitors, and we love to do the impossible, because it’s almost like going to beat Leinster at home. “Faced with Exeter Chiefs symbolizing the last hopes of English rugby this season, the yellow and black did not go into detail by multiplying the offensives throughout the meeting.
However, the Chiefs tried to disrupt the La Rochelle machine. The English “fired first”, starting in the 6th minute, with a hard try from third center line Sam Simmonds. Not enough to cool a Matmut Atlantique stadium massively filled with Charentais who swept over Bordeaux for the occasion.
15 consecutive Champions Cup wins
On the pitch, the players also did not doubt for long. Three minutes after the English test, the Rochelais responded with a kicking session that the Toulouse Football Club, winners the day before of the Coupe de France, would not have denied. With the stick, the opener Antoine Hastoy found his winger Raymond Rhule with his right foot, who offered himself a session of “dribbling” to go flatten in a corner.
The Rochelais counter unlocked, the scoreboard could start to get carried away. Taking advantage of the indiscipline and the yellow card received by hooker Dan Frost (31st), the Maritimes were happy to exploit the largesse in the English defense by chaining inspired game launches. In the 39th minute, scrum-half Tawera Kerr-Barlow perfectly illustrated his attacking inspirations by going to score his team’s fourth try after a perfectly executed move.
With his team leading 26-7 at half-time, full-backs coach Sébastien Boboul feared only one thing, a “slackening” of his players. “We have to score the first points in the second half. ” Instructions respected a few minutes later thanks to a recipe that had already proven itself in the first half: Antoine Hastoy for the pass on foot, Raymond Rhule for the reception and the try (44th). Already more or less heard, the result of the match was then definitively ratified, the end of the meeting resembling a rugby 7s match with two teams chaining the tries (seven in all for the Rochelais, four for Exeter).
Before switching back to the Top 14 next week, the Rochelais can already savor their new European performance. On the heels of an ongoing series of fifteen consecutive Champions Cup victories – unheard of in the history of the competition – they could become the first to retain this title two seasons in a row since the English double from Saracens in 2016 and 2017. Authentic feat for a club that was still playing in the second division in 2014…
