Uini Atonio is right on time for our Zoom appointment. “I think we’re having lunch soon,” he says with a grin. “I don’t want to be late for that.” The prop’s desire to fuel up is understandable because there is hard work to do. La Rochelle, the Champions Cup holders, stand two victories away from retaining the trophy they won in a dramatic showdown against Leinster last season.
Ronan O’Gara’s side meet Exeter on Sunday in the second semi-final, in Bordeaux, for the right to play Leinster in next month’s final in Dublin. La Rochelle have already knocked Saracens and Gloucester out of Europe and are engaged in a tight battle against Toulouse for the French Top 14 title, so it may seem natural to regard them as favourites, particularly in view of Exeter’s mixed domestic form. But that is not how Atonio sees it.
“We’re the newcomers to this competition,” he says of their status in relation to Rob Baxter’s team, who won the trophy in 2020. “We won it last year, but we’re still a very young club in the Champions Cup.”
Atonio’s view is supported by La Rochelle’s record against Exeter: they have never beaten the Devon club, who have won all four previous meetings between the sides. “The last time we played them was at Sandy Park three years ago, and we got a belting, especially in the scrums,” Atonio says of a 33-14 pool-stage defeat in what became a victorious campaign for the Chiefs. “Exeter are a really good team.”
It is well documented that Baxter’s squad will look very different next season, with 19 players moving on, and Atonio believes that may spell danger for the defending champions. “I think if it was my last season, or if our club had 19 players leaving, I’d play my heart out,” says the 33-year-old France front-rower. “It’s a good group, they’ve won a couple of big titles together, and I think they’ll want to finish off with the cherry on top of the cake. It’ll be a good mindset for them to come out firing.”
“Mindset” is a word the relaxed and cheerful Atonio uses often, particularly regarding the impact of O’Gara since he joined the club in 2019. “Even though we win, he’s never happy,” Atonio says. “It’s always getting that mindset ready for the week after. Last weekend we beat Clermont, but he wasn’t satisfied even with the five points. The standards weren’t as high as we needed to be.”
O’Gara himself, recently linked with the England head coach role following Eddie Jones’s dismissal, admits he is far from an expert on the intricacies of forward play. But Atonio says that as both a tactician and motivator, the former Ireland and Munster fly-half has proved to be the missing piece in La Rochelle’s jigsaw.
“We’ve got a good group, good staff, and Ronan’s like that key piece we needed to get that front foot on other teams,” Atonio says. “We always had a good group, we just didn’t have that outside knowledge … Ronan’s helped us a lot. He works a lot with our nine/10 combinations. Our kicking game is way better than it was, and we’re not just a smash-and-bash team anymore – we like to play with the ball.
“We’ve changed the way we train, we’ve changed the way we play [under O’Gara],” Atonio says of the man who won the competition twice as a Munster player. “The way he gets us ready for different games; that has changed dramatically over the last two or three years. We’re playing these games like it’s a final every week.”
Should La Rochelle claim back-to-back Champions Cups at the Aviva Stadium on 19 May, that would surely cause their exacting head coach to celebrate a job well done? “Even going back-to-back, Ronan will say: ‘We need the three-peat’,” Atonio says.
“Winning it again would be unreal for the team, for the club, for the town. Everyone saw last year when we won. I think they’ll make that a public holiday here in La Rochelle soon.”
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The French club may harbour painful memories of past thumpings at the hands of Exeter’s famously powerful pack, but they have developed into a more mature, better-rounded side with a wealth of ball-carrying options up front and no shortage of flair in the backs.
With Atonio, Will Skelton, Grégory Alldritt and Levani Botia bearing down on them in Bordeaux, Exeter’s defending will need to be on point. “Yeah, it’s good. It’s actually quite great,” Atonio says of La Rochelle’s attacking options.
“Normally you’ll just have one or two big ball carriers in a team. Then at 12, we’ve got Jonathan Danty, and he’s like a juggernaut. We’ve got Levani Botia, he’s been playing 7 lately. It’s really good, especially when we come out of a big scrum and we’re just going forward … If you’re playing nine or 10 in this team, you could probably just play sitting down.”
Worryingly for Exeter, perhaps, Atonio believes there is room for improvement in their battle for a domestic and European double. “We haven’t been playing as good as we want,” he says. “If we’re not ready to start this game, we’ll probably get pumped.”
Atonio’s quiet confidence, and positive mindset, suggests Sunday could be the day that victory against Exeter finally arrives.
