“Grenoble vs Mont-de-Marsan: Thrilling Pro D2 Semi-Final with Nine Tries and High Stakes”

There will be whatever happens from the Top 14 at the foot of the Alps next season. After Oyonnax, it was Grenoble who got their ticket to the Pro D2 final on Saturday after their victory against Mont-de-Marsan after a match rich in points (36-27). Led 12-0 at the quarter of an hour, the Isérois at the foot of the wall were able to regain their senses and overthrow Stade Montois in a breathless semi-final with nine tries. The last, registered by Romain Fusier (69th), sealed the fate of this game with twists and ensured Grenoble to dispute with its neighbor Oyonnax next Saturday in Toulouse the right to go up in Top 14 without going through the access match.

The Landais boldly played their luck but were handicapped by their indiscipline. At the end of the period when Grenoble was pushing hard to come back, they made a mistake and received two yellow cards in quick succession, against Ramotobua (38th) and Curie (40th + 3). In this interval of double numerical inferiority, they thus conceded two tries by Blanc-Mappaz (40th + 5) and Julien Farnoux (45th), forcing them to chase after the score. A blow as their winger Naituvi, each time well served by Laousse-Azpiazu (1st, 15th) had put them on the right track early in the match.

Rasaku’s lightning, the last word for Fusier

The challenge and the tight spaces mean that the wingers do not often have the opportunity to express themselves at this stage of the competition. Saturday at the Stade des Alpes, however, they were at the party. After Naituvi’s double at the start of the match, his counterpart from Grenoble Karim Qadiri also shone with a classy action, breaking two tackles to score the revolt test of his team (32nd). But what about Montois Rasaku’s flash of genius in the second half? Starting from his camp, the Fijian launched himself victoriously into a mad race, beating a total of six defenders on the same action (62nd) with his speed and his hooks. A try that allowed the Mons to return to a mark of their opponents (29-27), promise of an explosive end to the game.

Promise kept. Very close to scoring, the FCG also almost got stabbed again by Naituvu, on the verge of a murderous interception (67th). But the Fijian could not control the ball and conceded a scrum near his in-goal on which the Isérois pressed and were rewarded, Romain Fusier coming to conclude a sequence of shelling from his forwards in the corner (69th). The score then did not move despite the last ten very animated minutes and a last numerical inferiority from Mons. In the end, the loser of last year’s access match fought admirably but could not prevent the second of the regular phase from joining the first for what seemed, from the start of these playoffs, like the expected finale of this Pro D2.