Top 14: Montpellier make it eight in a row

Lawrence Nolan
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Montpellier’s eighth win on the bounce, a comfortable 29-12 win over Pau, has put them within arm’s length of Union Bordeaux-Begles at the summit of the Top 14.

On a weekend where the quality was notably diluted by the absence of the international players, the table became a lot tighter at both the top and the bottom.

Hard work

UBB’s game at Clermont was called off on Sunday after a Covid outbreak in the Clermont camp, which meant Montpellier could move to within a bonus point win of the leaders having played the same number of games.

Philippe Saint-Andre’s team made perhaps harder work of it than they should, but scrum-half Cobus Reinach proved the difference between the two sides, scoring a hat-trick of tries before being substituted with ten minutes to go to a standing ovation.

The boot of Antoine Hastoy kept Pau in touch throughout, but a late try for Brandon Amosa sealed the deal for Montpellier.

Lyon moved up to third – albeit having played two games more than both UBB and Montpellier – with a win over Stade Francais that was badly needed after a rough week in the wake of coach Pierre Mignoni’s decision to step down at the end of the season; he is set to be replaced by Xavier Garbajosa.

It was a rough first half for Lyon too, down 19-11 at the break after Arthur Coville’s try on the buzzer. Lyon’s only bright point had come from a chip by Lima Sopoaga and regather and charge to the line by Josua Tuisova up to then.

But the home side tightened up significantly after the break, with five penalties from Leo Berdeu proving to be too much for Stade, whose only second half points came from the boot of Joris Segonds.

Castres moved up to fourth with a 22-10 win at Toulon, who are now bottom of the table and looking very unstable. They lost despite playing against 13 men for seven minutes and 14 for another 13 minutes, and a team featuring the likes of Baptiste Serin and Cheslin Kolbe would normally be expected to offer more.

As it was, Castres, fired on by the manic Rory Kockott, made easy work of it. Kockott scored their try in the first half, answered by Luis Carbonel of Toulon, but a second half of desperate quality belonged to Castres, whose intensity at the breakdown yielded a string of penalties.

Fly-half Benjami Urdapileta converted three of them, adding a drop goal and giving Castres a real boost in the race for play-off places.

Toulon replaced Biarritz at the bottom, although the former does have three games in hand on the latter. They may also have Pierre Mignoni from next season apparently.

But Biarritz, who have also been having a rough time of things recently, dug deep to secure a precious win at home to La Rochelle.

The game see-sawed a lot, with the visitors often looking complacent, but the second half try by Remi Picquette appeared ominous for Biarritz, taking the score to 21-13.

La Rochelle fly-half Ihaia West made it 24-13, but then came the comeback. First Joe Jonas galloped over after a superb cut-out pass from Francis Saili and then, in the final minute Josh Tyrell drove over from close range to send both the home fans and home bench into ecstasy.

It was not without controversy though. Bizarrely, a second ball arrived on the pitch during the maul after a line-out with the clock in the red, meaning both sides ‘won’ it. La Rochelle’s Tawera Kerr-Barlow kicked his ball out, thinking it was the last kick of the game, while Biarritz hooker Francois da Ros dove over the line for what he thought was the match-winning try! The referee opted to give Biarritz the scrum, from which they ran the attacking set that led to Tyrell’s score. Scenes.

Perpignan maintained their climb away from the bottom too, with a storming 36-13 win over a Toulouse side palpably missing their international cohort – indeed, should Perpignan escape relegation by a win, the relegated team might well have a legitimate grievance about the fairness of playing games during Six Nations weekends, so weak was the Toulouse performance.

But it was not a terribly weak Toulouse side, more it looked rusty, not least shipping three easy tries in the first 19 minutes, which absolutely made the difference.

Brive are back in the relegation mix too; having played so well last week they backed that up with a stinker in Paris, losing 57-19 to Racing 92.

READ MORE: Six Nations: Five takeaways from France v Italy as the hosts’ pack excels

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