'Competitive' Biarritz Take Aim At Under-pressure Stade Francais

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Nov, 2021 ) :All rugby eyes in France will be back on the Top 14 this weekend after the French national team sparkled in the international break.

Led by Toulouse scrum-half Antoine Dupont, Les Bleus racked up three wins, including a storming 40-25 victory over New Zealand to raise expectations ahead of the 2023 World Cup France will host, with the All Blacks as first-up opponents.

Dupont and his half-back partner Roman Ntamack are rested as league leaders Toulouse host Brive in Saturday's late game.

At the other end of the table, Biarritz are making a fight of it after promotion following seven seasons in the ProD2.

Heading into the 11th round of Top 14 action, the Basque club have 14 points after winning three games out of 10, victories coming over Bordeaux (27-15), Racing 92 (28-19) and Brive (37-9).

Narrow defeats by Toulouse (17-11) and Toulon (13-9) mean that Biarritz are not a side that can be taken for granted, something not lost on Gonzalo Quesada, coach of Saturday's big-spending opponents, Stade Francais.

"We kick off again with two massive matches, firstly Biarritz, a team I know well," said the former Argentina fly-half who had a year coaching the Basque outfit back in the 2017/18 season.

Praising Biarritz's "freshness and dynamic", Quesada acknowledged that they had had problems putting teams away.

"But they're a team that play very nice rugby, with fervour, a good crowd and pride at being in the Top 14," he said.

"Unfortunately for us we're going to play them at their home with a new freshness after 15 days of holidays. We've been warned that it will be a great challenge.

" - First bet won - In charge at Biarritz is Matthew Clarkin, an England-born New Zealander and former No 8 who captained Bordeaux until he retired in 2016.

His players, Clarkin admitted on rugbyrama.fr, were indeed fresh from holidays, 95% of them having been given a whole week off.

"The holidays were welcome and well deserved, the players needed them," he said.

Clarkin said he was more than satisfied with his team's showing in the first 10-match bloc of league action.

"Nobody expected us to be promoted but we managed it. Everybody promised us hell," he said.

"You can say it's hell because it's tough, but I think we've won our first bet: to show that we can be competitive and win matches.

"We've shown that we can perform. Now we need to win matches, score points and hope that come the end of May there's at least one team behind us.

"We have to put pressure on other teams. We think that we're better placed to manage stress and pressure because there's not necessarily either of them for us." Turning to the visit of Stade Francais, sitting 11th in the table on 18 points with four victories to their name, Clarkin was under no illusion which team was under most pressure.

"It's maybe more a turning point of the season for Stade Francais than for us, even if it's at our home Aguilera stadium," he said.

"They have the biggest budget in the league and I guess they just don't belong where they are for the moment. So we leave the pressure on them." Fixtures (all times GMT)SaturdayBiarritz v Stade Francais, La Rochelle v Pau, Montpellier v Castres, Perpignan v Clermont (all 1300), Toulon v Lyon (1500), Toulouse v Brive (1905).