Lyon and Toulon battled to a 13-13 draw in a tightly contested Top 14 match at the Matmut Stadium Gerland on Saturday, February 28th. The result leaves Lyon in 10th place in the provisional standings with 39 points, while Toulon climbs to 7th.
Despite a frustrating outcome, LOU Rugby center Martin Méliande acknowledged the intensity and spirit displayed by his team. “There’s frustration, because we think we could have won it at the end,” Méliande said. “We can take away the mindset we put into it, the intensity. But when the result isn’t there, it’s inevitably mixed. It was a very strategic encounter, we haven’t played a match like that for a long time, I don’t think we’ve played one like it this season… It will teach us for the future. But to tell you what we needed to do to win… We had that penalty to win it at the end, except we missed it. That proves we put in the ingredients to win.”
The match was characterized by a strategic approach, a departure from previous games this season, according to Méliande. He highlighted a missed opportunity to capitalize on a yellow card received by Toulon’s Domon, acknowledging the team’s difficulty in converting the advantage. “It leaves regrets, yes, because we had the opportunity to play differently. But with the intensity we put in, everyone had their head down a bit. To lift your head and look at the options we had, it was complicated. But once again, we had the penalty to win.”
Lyon adjusted their tactics at halftime, trailing 3-0. Méliande explained the shift in strategy: “The instruction was to play more in the axis, but likewise on the returns on the closed side where their players were sometimes slow to circulate. We wanted to tighten them up to inject some dynamism, even though it was difficult to send out a game with the rain. Without the rain in the second half, we managed to produce a little more, which explains our better second half.”
Méliande believes the team has demonstrably improved in recent weeks. “I don’t know what it was like two months ago. For six, seven weeks, we’ve been working like crazy. We can see that the team has grown, even if it’s not enough to win this kind of battle yet. When the work is healthy during the week, the cohesion is better. That’s what should allow us to compete with the strong teams. At the beginning of the season, we had complicated matches at the strategic level. We can see that we’re working better today, but we have to learn from this match to win the next time.”
Despite recent internal challenges for Toulon, including the situation surrounding their manager Pierre Mignoni, Méliande acknowledged their opponent’s resilience. “Difficult moments are a bit of the B.A.-BA of all the Top 14 teams. What’s happening to their manager isn’t funny… But it also allowed them to rally around their strengths: combat, conquest, the forwards’ game. They have great players, who know how to manage this kind of match, as we saw tonight.”
Lyon will next face USA Perpignan on Saturday, March 21st at the Stade Aimé Giral, while Toulon will host Stade Français Paris at the Stade Mayol on the same day.
