At the end of the suspense, Bayonne offers himself La Rochelle in the Top 14

The Basques can touch wood: a miracle allowed them to win at La Rochelle on Saturday evening. In fine form, Maritime flyhalf Antoine Hestoye saw his ball hit the outside post two minutes from time on what looked like a match point penalty goal.

Not being able to improve on their highlights, Rochelle bowed out at the end of a match in which they dominated regionally. Clumsy for an hour, uninspired with ball in hand, the double European champions developed their game, certainly, but without rhythm or conviction. To shine on defense, that’s all it takes to be united and organized.

After a missed penalty goal by Camille Lopez against the posts – rare enough to note – Beyoncé stepped up and quickly found fault with their solid right-back Tevita Tatafu (10th). In the 20th Lopez refocused, Rowing found themselves in front (10-0), which they held until the break before recovering from the restart (44th, 13-0) thanks to another goal from the same Lopez. .

Alldrit allowed Rochelle to trust him

Unable to realize their long and frequent highlights, especially between the 48th and 65th, powerless in the scoring zone and deciding to favor penalties instead of penalty attempts, Rochelleise, not very sharp until then, had the right idea to play. Bruni (63rd) stood up to take advantage of his numerical superiority after signing Judicel Cancoriate (67th) at the first attempt after being yellow-carded for repeated fouls.

So the Basques paid a heavy price for their indiscipline, conceding a second full-field effort converted by Antoine Hestoy, signed by French and La Rochelle captain Gregory Alldrit (73rd), who would only know the breakthrough. Clinging to this point in advance like a shipwrecked man on his buoys, Haiguy’s teammates could not sink, aided by the amount of posts to delight their audience at the Jean-Dougère Stadium where they remain unbeaten.