Castres shock Clermont
Top 14 leaders Clermont went down to a shock 35-28 home defeat at the hands of Castres in an entertaining game at the Parc des Sports Marcel-Michelin on Friday.
Top 14 leaders Clermont went down to a shock 35-28 home defeat at the hands of Castres in an entertaining game at the Parc des Sports Marcel-Michelin on Friday.
Castres played out of the skins and outscore their hosts four tries to one to secure an offensive bonus point.
Clermont's star-studded team were looking for their 11th consecutive victory but came up against an exemplary Castres defence that was complimented by some enterprising attacking play.
Despite some pedantic refereeing making life very hard for the visitors, Castres played smart rugby to run out deserving winners.
Clermont have not lost at home since March 2006 but in front of a sell-out Parc des sports Marcel-Michelin, the hosts were far from their brilliant best.
Clermont opened the scoring through a penalty by fly-half Brock James. His opposite number Anthony Lagardère replied soon afterwards to level the scores when Loïc Jacquet played the ball while off his feet.
Castres were mixing it up well, playing ambitious fifteen man rugby and had the better of their hosts in the first quarter.
Former Crusaders scrum-half Kevin Senio scored the games first try to put Castres ahead, darting around the blindside to catch the Clermont defence napping.
When Lagardère then slotted another penalty to make the score 13-3, the championship leaders knew they had a game on their hands.
Clermont almost immediately reduced the gap as the sharp shooting James kicked his second penalty and then a third when the referee made a very harsh call on Castres full-back Cameron McIntyre for kicking the ball away after the he had blown his whistle.
Castres weren't about to lie down. Right wing Brad Fleming grabbed hold of a cross field kick, stepped inside Vilimoni Delasau and then left Anthony Floch for dead to score Castres's second.
A minute later Florian Faure left the Clermont defence shaking their heads to score the visitor's third under the posts from the restart.
James pulled three points back and the score was 25-12 at half time. Clermont have scored more tries than anyone else in France this season, 63, but couldn't score a single one in the first-half.
Clermont kicked off the second-half with fire in their bellies and soon James further reduced the deficit with his fifth penalty as Castres were given their second firm warning for using their hands while off their feet. A minute or two later Lagardère was shown yellow for doing just that and James kicked his sixth successful penalty.
With Clermont closing the gap the crowd was going crazy. McIntyre silenced them down a little with a penalty of his own and there was a deafening silence in the packed stadium when Lionel Mazars intercepted a long pass and left his opposite number Marius Joubert trailing in his wake to score Castres's fourth.
Clermont were dominating possession but despite being a man down, Castres will still racking up the points.
With the scrums uncontested since Castres didn't have a specialist replacement for the injured Matthieu Bonnello, Clermont were running out of options. The home side then brought on their scoring machine Fijian, Napolioni Nalaga in an attempt to add some firepower to their attack.
Nalaga soon showed his worth as he powered through three Castres defenders to score his side's first and only try (and his twelfth of the season) to get Clermont back in the game. James continued his faultless kicking display to convert and make the score 25-35.
Castres held on till the end though and when victory became impossible for Clermont, James kicked his seventh penalty to rescue a bonus point for Clermont.
It turned out to be a bad day for Clermont with Toulouse crushing Auch 72-12 in Friday's other game to reduce the gap at the top of the table to six points.
The Scorers
For Clermont:
Try: Nalaga
Cons: James
Pens: James 7
For Castres:
Tries: Senio, Fleming, Faure, Mazars
Cons: Lagardère 2
Pens: Lagardère 2, McIntyre
Drops:
Yellow cards: Lagard̬re (Castres Рkilling the ball), Saayman (Castres Рnot retreating ten metres)
Man of the match: Castres captain Lionel Nallet lead a fifteen man effort
Moment of the match: Brad Fleming's try had the writing on the wall for Clermont who were unable to get their noses back in front
Villain of the match: No fisticuffs to report.
Clermont: 15 Anthony Floch, 14 Vilimoni Delasau, 13 Marius Joubert, 12 Pierre-Manuel Garcia, 11 Julien Malzieu, 10 Brock James, 9 Pierre Mignoni, 8 Julien Bonnaire, 7 Alexandre Audebert, 6 Elvis Vermeulen, 5 Thibaut Privat, 4 Loïc Jacquet, 3 Davit Zirakashvili, 2 John Smit, 1 Laurent Emmanuelli.
Replacments: 16 Ledesma, 17 Domingo, 18 Samson, 19 Broomhall, 20 Pic, 21 Napolioni Nalaga, 22 Baby.
Castres: 15 Cameron McIntyre, 14 Bradley Fleming , 13 Laurent Marticonera, 12 Lionel Mazars, 11 Neumi Nanuku, 10 Anthony Lagardère, 9 Kevin Senio, 8 Gambo Adamou, 7 Florian Faure, 6 Leiataua Tomiki, 5 Lionel Nallet (c), 4 Colin Gaston, 3 Luc Ducalcon, 2 Mattthieu Bonnello, 1 Carl Hoeft.
Replacements: 16 Terrain, 17 Saayman, 18 Capo Ortega, 19 Barker, 20 Tekori ou Vosloo, 21 Tillous-Borde, 22 Benassis ou Teulet.
Referee: Jean-Christophe Gastou
Touch judges: Jean-Christophe Clot, Olivier Migne
Assessor: Pascal Bouchet, Daniel Pruvot
Television match official: Daniel Gillet