A Montauban Too Far

How have Top 14 competitors found Montauban out?

Last year, Montauban pulled off an improbable fairytale season to sneak into the play-offs then win three on the bounce against stronger opposition to emerge victorious. However, I wrote on this Substack about how that season, as incredible as it was, had a lot to do with luck. That wasn’t the only factor of course, they also kicked teams to death with relentless drop kicks and long range penalties which they made at the expense of 22-entries. I predicted that Montauban couldn’t perform in the Top 14 unless they made significant squad improvements. While they made some, it hasn’t turned out to be enough to make them competitive. But, how have team’s defended a team who seemed to have struck a winning formula?

Last season, Montauban had 2.1pts per 22-entry (the year they escaped the Pro D2) this year (planted to the bottom of the Top 14) it’s 2.1pts per 22-entry. What has changed is the number of entries (per the excellent Oval Insights) from 9.6 last year to 8.2 this year. The points outside the 22 have dropped from 5.7pts to 2.6pts. At the same time they’ve gone from allowing 10.4 22-entries to allowing 12.4. Those sounds like relatively small changes but of course they were small changes to a team whose underlying statistics suggested they were a mid to upper tier Pro D2 side.

For possessions starting in the opposition half, Montauban have converted just 10.2% of them into tries this season, 27th of the 30 teams in the Top 14 this year or Pro D2 last. The problem, it appears, is sadly blindingly obvious. Montauban start games so poorly (their average score at half-time is 9-23). That limits how they can play. That long range kicking game isn’t as effective when you’re chasing a 14pt deficit. Last season it was keeping them in matches but this time around the game has gone before they’ve got going.

In that last article, I said that if Montauban just assumed that they were ‘deserving’ of the Top 14 then they would make the mistake of not sufficiently strengthening and would undergo a miserable and underwhelming season. Now, they haven’t sufficiently strengthened and they are having a miserable season. But, perhaps that doesn’t give them enough credit. Maybe, maybe, they had the foresight to understand the situation they were in. They might have known that the Top 14 was a bridge too far and decided not to stake everything on a single season if that meant long-term financial ruin. Instead, this could be a season of growth. Admittedly, growth which comes after a chastening season, but still growth.

This is a good lesson. Mention of underlying stats might not sound very romantic but it is important. It’s easy to get caught up in the actual results and ignore luck, both good and bad. Do that and you can end up jettisoning a good coach on an unlucky run or keeping a bad coach riding a wave.

Attacking the Space is now out! Get it from all good bookshops in the UK, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand!