Perry Freshwater, the scrum coach of USAP, opens up before the final preparation match against Toulon (this Friday at 8pm at Aimé-Giral). Perry, what are you expecting from your players in this final preparation match? First and foremost, we expect the right attitude from the guys. Against Racing (defeat 12-17, editor's note), they gave it their all, even if everything wasn't perfect. We lacked a bit of physical density. And we know that Toulon is very strong with a lot of density, especially in the front row with Dany Priso, Teddy Baubigny, and others. Especially since you encountered difficulties in the set-piece against Racing... Yes, we worked on it this week. But we struggled with the technique they had in the scrum. I wasn't very happy about it, not just in terms of ourselves, but also in terms of the refereeing. As for the lineouts, I thought we weren't too bad. There were a few calls that we didn't quite understand, but that's completely normal with new players in the lineup. They worked well this week. The scrum will be sorted out based on our attitude. We tended to wait for them a bit, and I hope we'll rectify that. You're narrowing down the group to 29 players for this match. Are you in competition mode now? Yes. We had a lot of young players who had a very good preparation. The future looks promising. But it's difficult to rotate with 35 or 36 players. With 29, we're getting into the thick of it. We need to give rhythm and certainty to the guys who are vying to start against Paris. Are you already thinking about the first championship match against Stade Français? Not yet. The preparation matches should not be neglected, they are interesting. We need to know where we're going and how we should do it. It's important that our skills are in place. We saw a significant number of dropped balls when there was no one in front of us. That needs to be rectified. But we had a good week of work. A word on Akato Fakatika, who could start the match against Toulon this Friday? Akato has always had great potential. We played him a bit on the left and right last year. And he gained momentum towards the end of last season. He had a good performance on Friday against Racing. He's a very strong player. But he's still young, and we need to support him properly, surround him with strong players. He's not the finished product, far from it. Akato needs to gain confidence, like all young players, and be good in every match. But if he's starting to show up, it means he's worked hard and is in good physical shape. There has been work done. He'll have a big test against Toulon with Dany Priso or Bruce Devaux facing him. But he's a player who is growing in strength. Source
