There is a mixture of bitterness and pride in Mélissa Hannouni's voice.
The bitterness of having seen the club in which she has played for five years come to this and, at the same time, the pride that the cry of the heart pushed by her teammates and herself has been overwhelmingly heard, for once.
“We were surprised that it took on so much scope and we are happy to see that we are supported, even beyond rugby, underlines the third line wing of 29 years.
It was not pleasant to do, but it is the only way we found to make our leaders react ”.
This "only way" was the last resort of a collective on the verge of cracking.
On Sunday, the women's section of AS Bayonne was to play a Coupe de France match, a new competition introduced this season in the calendar, against Stade Toulouse.
A match that the girls of the ASB have decided not to play, justifying in a press release the lack of means at their disposal to practice their sport at the highest level.
“While all Elite 1 clubs are booming, we remain at the same stage as four years ago, when we rose to the highest level in France.
"
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"The whims of princesses"
A situation that has become almost unbearable for the players. This summer, many executives (Pauline Bourdon, Lou Baguette, Carla Arbez, Maika Brust, Tohra Balde or Lauriane Lissar) left the “Baionako Neskak” (the Daughters of Bayonne in Basque). In this amateur club where all the sportsmen and women are volunteers, the women are the only ones to evolve in the national first division and it was difficult to convince high level players to join the Basque coast to replace them. "It is a club which opened its doors to women's rugby several years ago, but which is perhaps exceeded by the requirements of the elite 1, summarizes Melissa Hannouni, who cites among other things the lack of aid to housing and employment on the club side. If we continue like this, the team is on the way to ruin. "
The result is a disastrous start to the season both in sport
(3 defeats in 3 games, 118 points collected for 16 registered in Elite 1)
and in human terms
(14 injured, and "an average of 20 players in the training last month, ”says the press release).
More generally, we deplore a lack of infrastructure, with for example an access acquired only this year to a weight room and a physical trainer, however “essential and indispensable to the practice of our discipline at a high level”. “Requirements perceived as the whims of princesses”, deplores the text written by the Neskaks.
“Our desire was to protect the physical integrity of the players and express our dissatisfaction,” Hannouni develops.
We lost a lot of players and there was no suitable recruitment to replace them.
It shows the problem that has reigned in the club for several seasons.
For this match against Toulouse, the girls who were on the bench came from our team 2, in Federal 1, some of which have just started rugby.
We couldn't play without taking risks, everyone would have blamed each other if there had been an accident that day.
"
A place in the new Aviron Bayonnais center
At the club, the decision not to play Sunday's game made people cringe. “When you're athletic, you never refuse a fight, believes President Gilles Peynoche. In rugby, you don't escape. We may not agree but to go to these extremes is unacceptable. "For him, the reality with which his women have to deal is quite simply that of a club attached to its values of amateurism, which does as it can with the means at hand, and which goes well beyond this team despite his status. “We have 350 licensees, including 110-120 women and girls, we were pioneers in the development of women's sport, we have proven ourselves… We try to make people love rugby at our level. But we advance at our own pace and today, the girls have the means to fight, only at the bottom of the table. "
However, the dialogue is not broken between the club and its daughters, who keep in mind the objective of maintaining and have not planned to extend their movement to other matches.
For his part, President Peynoche assures him: he is working in good harmony with the town hall and Aviron Bayonnais, the major club in the region, so that the new AB training center which must come out of the ground running 2022 greatly benefits its women's section.
“Part of the center will be dedicated to them, they will have access to the weight room and to a covered ground so that they can train all year round.
The idea is that we professionalize the management, the methods, the premises.
A rapprochement that could be beneficial.
