Who’s hot and who’s not!
It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons this past week.
THEY’RE ON FIRE!!
Saracens: The Champions Cup holders got their campaign off to a flying start, with a fine all-round showing and scored a half century of points in their tournament opener against Northampton, at Franklin’s Gardens on Sunday. Saracens eventually outscored Saints eight tries to one with Wales and British and Irish Lions flyer Liam Williams leading the way with a brace and he walked off with the Man-of-the-Match award afterwards.
Man of the Match goes to @sanjaywills – Take a bow Sanjay! pic.twitter.com/KlQGwAyCRp
— Saracens Rugby Club (@Saracens) October 15, 2017
La Rochelle: What a brilliant way to start off your first ever campaign in Europe’s premier knockout competition. The Top 14 outfit delivered a dominant display away from home and claimed a deserved bonus-point win over Harlequins at Twickenham Stoop. That result means they are sitting pretty at the top of Pool 1 in the Champions Cup.
Tevita Li: North Harbour’s dynamic wing was in sensational form this weekend as he scored five tries in his side’s 64-33 victory over Taranaki in their Mitre 10 Cup clash in Albany on Sunday. Li finished off a memorable match by scoring his fifth try shortly before full-time, and, in doing so, he equals North Harbour’s try-scoring record which was set by Glenn Davis against Poverty Bay-East Coast in 1999.
Alivereti Raka: ‘The Rocket’ got Clermont’s 2017/18 campaign off to a brilliant start with a superb try just four minutes into their clash with the Ospreys in Swansea. Raka set off on a blistering 50-metre run and left several defenders for dead before crossing the whitewash.
COLD AS ICE
Stade Français: The Challenge Cup champions made the worst possible start to their 2017/18 campaign when they suffered a humiliating 34-29 defeat to Krasny Yar in Krasnoyarsk. Like most of the top teams in the Challenge Cup, Stade fielded a second string outfit in this encounter but it looks like they under-estimated their hosts and paid the price for it.
Castres v Munster match officials: Sunday’s clash between Castres and Munster saw a diabolical decision made by referee Matthew Carley and TMO Sean Davey in that game’s dying moments. With the score 17-17 and Castres on the attack deep inside Munster’s half, Robin Copeland knocked the ball out of Rory Kockott hands at a ruck which meant the home side should have been awarded a penalty. However, after checking television replays, Carley and Davey felt that Copeland was the one who knocked on and awarded a scrum to Castres.
Free State Cheetahs: The Currie Cup’s defending champions were knocked out of the tournament before the semi-final phase. Last season, they finished the competition undefeated and pulled off a impressive 36–16 victory over the Blue Bulls in the final. This year, they only won six of their 12 games . Their campaign went off the rails when most of their first-choice players were called up for PRO14 duty when the men from Bloemfontein entered that competition. However, most of those players were back for the weekend’s clash against the Golden Lions but they still suffered a huge loss and that result brought their rein as champions to an end.
Waikato: The Mooloo Men’s 31-year run in the Mitre 10 Cup Premiership has come to an end. For five straight seasons, they have flirted with relegation, but this season the Hamilton-based province has failed to pull another rabbit out of the hat. This, after they were defeated 36-32 by Bay of Plenty which consigned them to the Championship in 2018. Waikato finished with a provincial record of seven straight defeats and finished just one point adrift of another New Zealand provincial heavyweight, Auckland, in the standings.