Agen find their nerve, Grenoble lose theirs

9/11/2026 19:00

Stade des Alpes

Ref: Thomas Charabas

Grenoble

France - Pro D2

33

39

Round 3

Agen

O. Pauta (24'), H. Trouilloud (27'), B. Couilloud (34'), B. Soury (42'), N. Megdoud (62')

Tries

L. Martins (7'), O. Cummins (40'), T. Fineanganofo (50'), D. Bellot (55'), D. Bozic (75')

T. Alary (28', 35', 43', 63')

Conversions

L. Richardis (8', 40'), J. Soulan (55', 76')

Penalties

L. Richardis (30'), J. Soulan (78')

This told us more about nerve than shape. Agen arrived with a blank column and left the Stade des Alpes with a template: stay alive, punish mistakes, trust your bench. Grenoble had the better carry threat and enough tries to win it twice, but when the game asked for control and discipline they blinked.

There was no full stat pack on hand, but the arc didn’t need one. Grenoble scored five tries at home, led after the break, and still couldn’t close. Two cards, a flurry of concessions while short-handed, and a visiting 10 off the bench landing his kicks – that’s the spine of it.

The hinge was discipline. Grenoble had an early warning when Romain Fusier sat down on 29 minutes and Lucien Richardis trimmed the margin immediately. They got away with it – even scoring through Barnabé Couilloud while a man down – but the late one killed them. When replacement back-rower Théo Lavoine was binned on 73 minutes, the game was still in their hands at 33–29. Two minutes later Damien Bozic powered over, Jules Soulan added the extras, and the same man’s penalty at 78 finished the job. Agen didn’t need to be perfect; they just needed Grenoble to give them a window. They obliged.

Up to that point, the match had been about momentum swings and how each side used them. Grenoble’s restart punch after half-time – Bastien Soury from close range for 26–17 – came from set-piece control and front-foot ball. Their eight, Otunuku Pauta, dented the line all night, and the home back three kept finding grass: Hugo Trouilloud on the edge, Nadir Megdoud finishing a sharp movement to reclaim the lead on 62. When Couilloud sniped before the break, it felt like the old Stade des Alpes surge might be back.

Agen refused to let the game get away. The visitors’ most important moment before the interval wasn’t a defensive set, it was Ollie Cummins finishing on the hooter to drag it back to 19–17. That try changed the mood. After Grenoble’s fast start to the second half, Agen’s response had bite and timing: Tomasi Fineanganofo crashed over on 50, then scrum-half Dorian Bellot picked the right seam five minutes later. Those two scores owed to sharper tempo around the breakdown and better support lines than we saw from them in the opening rounds. They also owed something to the bench. A clutch of changes around 47–51 minutes freshened the pack, and Soulan’s introduction at fly-half steadied the decision-making and, crucially, the goal-kicking.

Soulan is the obvious individual to single out. He arrived with half an hour left and didn’t miss: two conversions to keep Agen on Grenoble’s shoulder and the late penalty to turn a nerve-jangling finish into a two-score cushion. Bozic deserves as much credit for the winning try – a flanker who had worked himself into those channels all evening finally got the one that mattered – while Bellot’s snipe at 55 was the sort of opportunism this side has lacked during their flat start.

For Grenoble, there was plenty of edge in the attack. Couilloud’s burst, Trouilloud’s acceleration and Megdoud’s finishing were genuine threats, and Pauta gave them repeated gain-line wins. Thomas Alary kicked tidily from the tee. But the decision to swap Maël Navizet for Sam Davies on 52 didn’t bring the territorial control the night demanded, and the bench loosened their grip rather than tightened it. The scrum looked on top but didn’t translate into repeatable field position, and the lineout wasn’t clean enough to lean on in the last quarter. More than any of that, discipline and exit accuracy let them down at the precise moment Agen were asking them to be pragmatic.

Does the margin flatter the visitors? Not really. It was a one-score game deep into the last five minutes and turned on a yellow card. Agen also shipped five tries and were under pressure at set piece for spells; there’s nothing flattering about having to survive that. But they were colder in the decisive passages – Cummins at the break, the Bellot/Fineanganofo swing, Bozic at 75, Soulan off the bench – and that’s where tight away matches are won.

What now? For Agen, finally a foothold in the season and, more importantly, a method. They overcame an opponent with more strike runners by playing the moments better and trusting the bench to add control. The defensive picture still needs work before Oyonnax rolls around, and the scrum won’t enjoy a 70-minute rewatch, but there’s a spine to hang onto. For Grenoble, the glass is half-empty: five tries at home should be enough, yet they handed the game back through avoidable penalties and a soft period while a man down. Turn the scrum platform and ball-carry into territory and scoreboard pressure, cut the cards, and they look a different side. Until then, Round 1’s fireworks remain a memory rather than a model.