Pietro Ceccarelli: “Perpignan is a magnificent club, when you play here there is a crazy atmosphere”

There are six games left in the Top 14 regular season and things are still very fluid and open in terms of standings.

After four victories in the last five games, Pietro Ceccarelli and Tommaso Allan’s Perpignan have left the swamps at the bottom of the table and even moved up to ninth position, six points ahead of the relegation zone.

A flattering step in the standings for a team that started at the beginning of the season with the aim of survival, which still remains to be ensured, and which had started with 5 defeats in the first 6 championship matches.

At the halfway point of the French top championship the team was third from last with five wins and eight defeats, with the same points as second-to-last Oyonnax and one more than Montpellier in last place. Today the victories have become ten out of twenty matches played.

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“I feel very comfortable here in Perpignan – said Ceccarelli in an interview with Midi Olympic which gives him the title of calm master – This is a magnificent club. When we play at home the atmosphere is crazy, and I underline this term. Here I have the opportunity to express myself fully and, despite an injury during the Six Nations which prevented me from having continuity, I have excellent sensations on the pitch with the team.”

“We have 6 games left until the end of the championship, for us it will be 6 finals. Our mantra will be the same as at the beginning of the season: face one opponent at a time, one after the other.”

The first opponent will be Lyon, a team with a much more robust budget and designed to reach much higher than the Catalans, but which languishes in twelfth position in the table. It is the team of Martin Page-Relo and Monty Ioane. The former should be on the bench as well as Ceccarelli, the latter could get one of the rare opportunities in the league, with the staff having preferred Xavier Mignot and Vincent Rattez to him throughout the season, probably also due to JIFF status issues.

“Lyon has excellent qualities in all departments – observes Ceccarelli – Our level of involvement and aggressiveness will have to be absolute to bring the match home. We will try to impose our game as we have always done at home.”

On the other pitches of the French top championship, the presence of Federico Mori is expected as the first center in Stade Français-Bayonne, a difficult away match for the Basque team, and Paolo Garbisi, who in the probable lineups for the weekend published by Midi Olympic he is given as the winner of the ballot with Dan Biggar for the number 10 shirt in big match of the day between Toulon and Toulouse. In ProD2, meanwhile, Filippo Alongi’s debut is close: the front line, new signing from Beziers, will be on the bench against Aurillac on Friday evening.

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