Despite the defeat, expected due to the level of the rival, the national rugby coach, Pablo Bouza, was satisfied with the work of his team that reached the 55th minute beating Fiji, but had to surrender to the evidence in the minutes finals. The Argentine reviewed some of the circumstances that occurred in the meeting, he was delighted with the atmosphere and even asked the Federation’s press officer to let all the journalists ask questions. who wanted it, grateful for the great reception and expectation of it.
Bouza, accompanied by Álvaro García, team captain, began by giving his vision of the match. Precisely the player highlighted: “We had a good first half, even though we had two fewer players we pushed, we held on, we went into the break winning, but in the end, against teams that are so physical, so tough, when we are worn out, they continue to push. “Tough tough game”. The coach, for his part, explained: “This is very good for Spanish rugby, a good team effort. Defending with two down for much of the first half leaves you without legs, until the 55th minute we were winning, but The team physically fell, which was natural.” And, later, he gave the key to being able to compete with these rivals: “Playing 10 games a year with these types of rivals for five years.”
The continuity of the players, with the controversy over the French league players who were not released to attend this event, was another of the points the coach spoke about: “Merkler’s case is the most striking. We went there twice and they told us that he played with Fiji and the European team, and a week before the game against Uruguay they told us that he is not coming with us for fear of getting hurt playing with Spain. We had already given the big list and we are not going to go out and explain the reason why one or the other does not come. That Toulouse, the most important team in Europe, cannot leave us a pillar for a game seems strange to me. The other players who did not come are because the clubs do not let them.”
Recalling that the last defeat against Fiji had occurred by 30 points, Bouza explained: “We are trying to improve, to be consistent with the performances. The team varies a lot with the calls, we cannot have a stable team, but the team has something that is responding”defended: “If a player is playing well, there is no reason to change him” and acknowledged that the plan was to play in the opposite field: “I think the territory is very important, getting out of your field well is essential, I think it was the best what we did in the first minutes.”
García was forceful when evaluating the Zorrilla atmosphere, with nearly 17,000 fans cheering for Spain: “It was magnificent, in Spain it is difficult to play in a stadium, on a field like that, with so many people. If it can be repeated in the future, go ahead,” while Bouza added: “The setting was spectacular” and added: “Spain needs to put in good performances to be able to have games like this. We have to maintain consistency and try to qualify for the World Cup to have games like this and playing in a stadium like this is ideal.”
Fiji Happiness. For his part, Mick Byrne, coach of Fiji, was happy to achieve the victory against Spain, making it two out of two in this international window. The ocean technician explained: “We are happy, we knew that against Spain at home it was going to be a very difficult match, it was a very important victory for us and we made it two out of two” And about the way to recover from the partial defeat in the first half, he explained: “In the first half we had frustration, with several attempts that finally did not go up on the scoreboard and we had too many errors in balls that fell to the ground. “I asked my players to be patient, to continue playing their game and that way we would reach victory.”. After the game, when asked about the introduction of the ‘touchmall’ in his game, the coach declared: “We have worked on it and yes, we want to introduce it in our game.”
Asked about the stadium and the atmosphere they found in Valladolid, Byrne stated: “We have been to many stadiums around the world, but this stadium is very beautiful, it was a special match, we loved playing in this environment” and he acknowledged: “We have spent some very good days in Valladolid.”
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