Castres shine to top pool and send Worcester out

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A hat-trick of tries from experienced scrum-half Rory Kockott helped Castres to an impressive 33-27 victory over Worcester Warriors in their vital European Challenge Cup fixture at Sixways on Friday.

The win sends Castres into the quarter-finals as pool winners as Worcester bow out at the expense of the Dragons, who beat Enisei-STM 47-5 at Rodney Parade to finish second and as one of the best runners-ups.

The Warriors went into the game knowing a bonus-point win would guarantee them passage into the last eight and it looked a straightforward task when first-half tries from full-back Jamie Shillcock and flanker Marco Mama helped them to a 20-12 interval lead.

And they appeared to be home and dry when scrum-half Michael Heaney scored a third try early in the second and Duncan Weir kicked his fifth goal.

Castres scored first-half tries through scrum-half Kockott and prop Wilfrid Hounkpatin and a breakaway try from Kockott after the break kept them in touch.

The turning point came when Worcester were reduced to 14 men with the sin-binning of Gerrit-Jan van Velze and the French side took full advantage.

Baptiste Delaporte went over for their fourth try which secured the bonus point but the visitors were not finished and France international Kockott completed his hat-trick to seal the comeback win.

Dragons needed nothing less than a five-point win over the Russians to keep alive their qualification hopes and in the end they ran in seven tries through Ross Moriarty, Jared Rosser, Harri Keddie, Tyler Morgan, Adam Warren (two) and Aaron Wainwright.

The Russians’ only try came from former South Africa winger Bjorn Basson as they trailed 14-5 at half-time.

Fly-half Sam Davies converted six of the seven tries for the Welsh region.

Challenge Cup