Rugby - An inconsequential defeat for the Barracudas

Saturday evening's 33-13 defeat at the hands of defending champions Good Luck Gosier in no way jeopardizes the play-off place secured by Saint Barth's rugby players.
If, in the overall ranking of the senior XV rugby championship, this defeat sees the Barracudas slip down one place, they are now on the third step of the table.sormais, sur la 3e marche du podium, les Bleu ciel et Blanc still have around forty days and a trip to RC Goyave to prepare for the play-offs, starting with the semi-finals on May 17.
And there's a good chance that the team they'll be facing will be the same as the one they faced last Saturday in Le Gosier, namely Good Luck. The defeat of the Saint Barths, who had only 19 players on the team sheet, means that their opponents have moved up to second place in the standings. Above all, there were no injuries or suspensions on the Saint Barthélemy side at the final whistle. With a reshuffled team, captain Gauthier Perriguet's team-mates held their own in the first half, with Romain Descoutey scoring for Saint Barth and Julien Seigneur for Gosier. And even if they weren't 100% successful at kicking, it was they who really put on the show, kicking penalty after penalty, to finish 9-6 in favor of the home side at half-time. And it was in the second half that the gap widened, with Les Gosiériens finally crossing the Saint Barth line four times, thanks to tries from Le Breton, Ramos, Swiatly and Seigneur, and a speedy try from Romain Descoutey, who was always on the lookout at the back of the red-and-white defense. Not that the Barracudas' morale was dampened by the fact that they had come to rehearse and enjoy themselves on this trip, as opening half Quentin Brats pointed out: "It's a shame we didn't manage to be present for the whole match, because we had a good 1st half, where we stuck to our game plan.... but in the second half, we lacked rigour in defence. That's something we need to work on if we're going to last longer in matches. That way, our pride in developing quality rugby will be even stronger. "Indeed, when analysing this defeat, there are many positive points.... in rugby, normally referred to as an "encouraging defeat". For prop Amory Chevillard, this match was more than that: "We knew that playing in Gosier would be complicated with a squad reduced by absences and suspensions. However, we wanted to show a good image of the team, of this band of friends, and that we had to give nothing away, at least in spirit. Now we know what we have to do to finish the regular season, we'll have to win at RC Goyave to play the semi-final, in front of our fans, in Saint-Jean. "For Good Luck, the match had been prepared with a vengeful spirit, as their captain Martin Spagniol recalls: "First and foremost, we wanted to make up for the affront of the first leg in Saint-Barthélemy, where we missed out, but we also wanted to win to prepare well for the Tournoi Antilles Guyane scheduled for Easter in Martinique. We came up against a fine Barras team who held out against us for much of the match. "At the end of April, the Gosieres will be defending their Dominican title, while the Saint Barths will be challenging for the title at RC Goyave.The end of April will see the Gosieres defend their Domicile title, while the Saint Barths face a tough challenge at RC Goyave on April 26, to close out the regular season with a must-win victory and book their place in the play-off semi-finals at home.