Pau draw with Racing 92

A late penalty from Samuel Marques ensured that Pau came away from their Friday clash against Racing 92 with a 15-15 draws.

Racing looked to have won the shootout thanks to five penalties from their scrum-half Maxime Machenaud.

Veteran full-back Damien Traille's 50-metre penalty gave Pau an early 3-0 lead before Machenaud added two penalties to give Racing the lead.

Thibault Daubagna's first effort tied things up at 6-6 and two more successful penalties from the Pau scrum-half gave the hosts a signifcant four-point lead in a tight contest by half-time.

Julien Pierre's yellow card was a setback for Pau after the former France lock gave away a penalty with Racing on the charge near to Pau's try line.

Machenaud struck again with a third penalty as Pau gave All Blacks fly-half Colin Slade his debut off the bench with less half an hour to go.

Two more penalties kept Machenaud's 100 percent record going as Racing took a 15-12 lead going into the closing stages.

With a penalty 40 metres out with a minute to go, Pau opted for the draw rather than the win with Marques delivering to seal a valuable two points.

The scorers:

For Pau:
Pens: Traille, Daubagna 3, Marques
Yellow Card: Pierre

For Racing 92:
Pens: Machenaud 5

Pau: 15 Damien Traille, 14 Sireli Bobo, 13 Julien Fumat, 12 Watisoni Votu, 11 Mosese Ratuvou, 10 Brandon Fajardo, 9 Thibault Daubagna, 8 James Coughlan, 7 Paddy Butler, 6 Sean Dougall, 5 Daniel Ramsay, 4 Julien Pierre, 3 Sylvain Charlet, 2 Mehdi Boundjema, 1 Jeremy Hurou.
Replacements: 16 Quentin Lespiaucq, 17 Chris King, 18 Jovili Domolailai, 19 Loic Bernad, 20 Samuel Marques, 21 Colin Slade, 22 Jale Vatubua, 23 Euan Murray.

Racing 92: 15 Brice Dulin, 14 Juan Imhoff, 13 Casey Laulala, 12 Alexandre Dumoulin, 11 Marc Andreu, 10 Rémi Talès, 9 Maxime Machenaud, 8 Antonie Claassen, 7 Bernard le Roux, 6 Yannick Nyanga, 5 Thibault Dubarry, 4 Manuel Carizza, 3 Luc Ducalcon, 2 Virgile Lacombe, 1 Davit Khinchagashvili.
Replacements: 16 Camille Chat, 17 Eddy Ben Arous, 18 Wenceslas Lauret, 19 Chris Masoe, 20 Mike Phillips, 21 Henry Chavancy, 22 Benjamin Dambielle, 23 Ben Tameifuna.

Referee: Sébastien Minery
Assistant Referees: Cédric Marchat, Laurent Breil
TMO: Bruno Bessot