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 24 April 2010: Perpignan and Toulon go straight to semis, Clermont host Racing and Toulouse play Castres in play-offs while relegated Bayonne await Montauban's appeal against demotion
Perpignan 44 Albi 0; Brive 23 Toulon 26; Biarritz 19 Clermont 26; Stade Francais 41 Racing-Metro 17; Toulouse 25 Castres 17; Montauban 22 Bayonne 8; Montpellier 34 Bourgoin 27 - Latest league table
Perpignan and Toulon finished top of the Top 14 pile and earned a direct route to the semi-finals as the top flight's regular season drew to a close.
Clermont and Toulouse earned home draws in the quarter-final play-offs, and will face Racing-Metro and Castres respectively in two weeks' time.
Biarritz will have to wait until May to see if they'll be in next year's Heineken Cup after a bonus point against Clermont held off a late surge by Stade Francais, overwhelming winners of the Paris derby.
At the bottom, Montauban beat Bayonne to avoid relegation for the moment, but will have to fill a €1.7m hole in their budget in order to avoid the drop to Pro D2 after they were demoted by the league's financial watchdogs.
Perpignan started the day in second place but always looked favourites to seal the regular-season top spot for the second year in a row as season-long basement club Albi were the guests at Stade Aimé-Giral. The Catalans didn't disappoint, winning 44-0 to go top of the table and avenging their defeat at Albi earlier in the season.
USAP had the bonus point secured by half time, Rimas Alvarez-Kairelis opening the try scoring on seven minutes, Jerome Porical adding another on 17 minutes and Gregory Le Corvec making it three for the afternoon two minutes before half-time. Le Corvec added a second after the interval, Jean-Philippe Grandclaude coming off the bench to bag the fifth and Philip Burger closing the account with his first and USAP's sixth try in the final minutes.
Toulon would have needed a bonus point win of their own to topple Perpignan and earn the right to choose their semi-final venue.
It's not that much of a bonus actually - the league has already decided that the semis will be held at Montpellier and St Etienne on Friday 14 May and Saturday 15 May respectively. I'd imagine the more accessible Montpellier would be the first choice of both teams, so the tasty prospect of Toulon taking on Clermont in the latter's heartland is already on the cards.
For the moment, Toulon will be thankful that they have a week off between next weekend's Amlin Challenge semi-final in Ireland and the Top 14 semi. They earned that break with a 26-23 win at Brive, Pierre Mignoni coming off the bench to inspire a tremendous last half hour after les Brivistes had led 16-9 at half time.
Mignoni joined the fray in place of Fabien Cibray after 49 minutes, and made his presence felt within 60 seconds, snaffling the ball from a Brive scrum on the halfway line, chipping downfield and gathering on Brive's 22-metre line. Winger Gabriele Lovobalavu followed up and was on hand to take the pass and score, Felipe Contepomi making it 16-all with the conversion.
The scrum half did it again on 62 minutes, breaking through the Brive defence before chipping ahead. Sonny Bill Williams and Antonie Claassen gave chase but it was the Australian who touched down, Contepomi adding the extras to make it 23-6 and adding a penalty five minutes later for a 10-point lead.
With five minutes to go, the hosts struck back, Horacio Agulla put over by a final pass from Claasen and Luciano Orquera converting to pull Brive to within three points.
But the try was to prove Agulla's final score for Brive before he leaves for Leicester, as the hosts were soon back in their own 22, and Toulon held out for the win and second place.
Even a draw would have lifted Brive to seventh place and a chance of Heineken Cup rugby next year after Biarritz lost 19-26 at home to Clermont.
After an early chance that saw the video referee called up to turn down a Magnus Lund touchdown as the Englishman put a foot in touch, Damien Traille opened the scoring with another drop goal - his 10th of the season. Morgan Parra and Brock James added a pair of penalties for a 6-3 lead before Dimitri Yachvili levelled it with a penalty after the video ref had turned down another Biarritz appeal.
He was called on again on 23 minutes when centre Gonzalo Canale set up an attack in the Basque 22 and Aurelien Rougerie put Napoleoni Nalaga in to score. Was the winger's final pass forward? Not according to the official, who awarded the try; James converted for a 16-6 half-time lead.
The scores were level seven minutes into the second half, Yachvili scoring all 10 points, adding an easy penalty two minutes after the break before levelling the scores after a big push from the forwards saw Lund set him up for the try which he converted.
Clermont responded with a string of attacks, finally regaining the lead on 62 minutes through Nalaga's second try. Biarritz's American winger Takudzwa Ngwenya dropped the ball in attack, and the Fijian gathered and raced in to score.
Three more points for Yachvili brought Biarritz to within four points going into the last 10 minutes, and although Parra restored the seven-point lead with his second penalty, the Basques spent the last five minutes camped on the Clermont line, only to lose the ball at their third scrum five and and the season as they started it, with a home defeat.
The bonus point meant Biarritz secured seventh place and a place in the Heineken Cup should they, Toulouse or Toulon triumph in Europe. That one point ended Stade Francais' hopes of seventh, but they still went all out to regain Parisian bragging rights with a 41-17 victory over Racing-Metro.
Racing could finish no higher or lower than sixth, and accordingly rested a handful of key players, but still held their city rivals 10-10 after 25 minutes thanks to a Greg Goosen try and five points from Jonathan Wisniewski to an Ollie Phillips try and conversion and penalty from Lionel Beauxis.
Phillips' opposite wing Romain Raine scored Stade's second on 28 minutes to establish a 17-10 half-time lead, and the English Sevens international added his own second eight minutes into the second half.
Beauxis made it 27-10 with the conversion and a penalty, and although Racing flanker Jone Qovu closed the gap with their second try, Stade earned a bonus point at the death with tries from Beauxis and replacement fly-half Ignacio Mieres.
Perhaps deservedly given their awful season, seventh place wasn't to be for Stade despite the big win, but their first game at Stade Charlety was a sell-out success; the 20,000-capacity ground will become familiar to their pink-shirted fans over the next 12 months while Stade Jean-Bouin is being rebuilt.
They will, of course, have to be content with being Paris's second team next season, especially if Racing-Metro owner Jacky Lorenzetti gets his way and hosts gala matches at Parc des Princes and even at Stade's home from home at St Denis' Stade de France.
Toulouse and Castres will meet again in a fortnight after a classic 4th/5th place showdown at Stade Ernest-Wallon ended with a 25-17 win for the 16-times champions. The eight-point winning margin means that Toulouse will host the rematch - a bonus point for Castres and the pair would have met at Stade Pierre-Antoine, a far more palatable prospect for a Castres side who haven't won in Toulouse since 1979.
For long periods they looked like they might pull off an unlikely win this time as they led 12-6 at half-time after a kicking contest between Jean-Baptiste Elissalde and league top scorer Romain Teulet.
Two quickfire tries after half time from Vilimoni Delasau - his first since arriving from Montauban - and Cedric Heymans gave Toulouse an 18-12 lead, but Romain Cabannes intercepted a looping Yannick Jauzion pass and grounded Yannick Caballero's subsequent chip ahead to draw the visitors to within a point.
Teulet's conversion kick from out wide was to prove crucial as the yellow carding of Castres hooker Mathieu Bonello allowed the Toulouse eight to demolish their rivals pack at a scrum five and let Finau Maka ground the ball. David Skrela converted and the two will meet again across town at the Stadium de Toulouse on May 8.
The only future clash between Montauban and Bayonne could be in the courtroom after the demoted Montalbanais dumped the Basques provisionally into Pro D2 with a 22-8 victory.
Bayonne must have been hoping for an easy ride in the relegation decider after Montauban lost easily at home to Montpellier last weekend, and never really showed up at Stade Sapiac as the hosts raced to a 14-3 half-time lead, Jean Cassin scoring the only try of the first half after connecting with a perfect cross-field kick from fly-half Mathieu Belié.
Julien Audy missed the conversion but kicked three penalties against a sole effort from Bayonne's Cedric Garcia.
Jean-Philippe Viard extended the lead to 17-3 with a drop goal 13 minutes into the second half, but Bayonne finally came to life, winger Julien Peyras racing 50 metres before finding Sam Gerber on his shoulder to score the try. It was Gerber's ninth try of the season, putting him on top of the Top 14 try-scorers' chart - one for the trivia books if Bayonne do go down.
Bayonne almost added a second when Thibault Lacroix attacked to within five metres of the Montauban line, but the local defence held firm, and it was the hosts who made the only addition to the score, prop Laurent Deboulbès intercepting a speculative Bayonne pass and Johan Dalla Riva finishing the move to send the sell-out crowd delirious.
The battle now moves away from the field, as Montauban president Patrick Vianco has until Thursday to find the €1.7m missing from the club's budget, and is said to be in talks with two banks about a rescue package.
If they secure the cash and their appeal against relegation is eventually accepted, expect Bayonne to launch a counter-appeal - the Basque town's mayor has already written to his Montauban counterpart helpfully pointing out that Bayonne, despite being one of the poorest clubs in the division, has never been investigated by the league's financial rottweilers the DNACG.
And finally to the game that really didn't matter, Bourgoin's visit to Montpellier. Both clubs celebrated staying up last weekend, and put on a seven-try exhibition for their relieved supporters, the hosts winning 34-27.
The scores were level at 13-all at half-time, a penalty try at the end of the half bringing Bourgoin back into the game after winger Manoel Dall'lgna had scored for Montpellier midway through the half.
Montpellier broke out after the break as Dall'lgna scored a second try and Marc Giraud and Francois Trinh-Duc added two more within three minutes of each other to give les Heraultais a 34-13 lead.
Back came Bourgoin, Romanian flanker Bogdan Leonte and fly-half Sebastien Laloo scoring two more tries to earn the visitors a slightly irrelevant bonus point.
PLAY-OFF SCHEDULE
Friday 7 May
Clermont vs Racing-Metro (Stade Marcel-Michelin, 21:00)
Saturday 8 May
Toulouse vs Castres (Stadium de Toulouse, 16:30)
SEMI-FINALS
Friday 14 May
Perpignan vs Toulouse or Castres (Stade Mosson, Montpellier, 21:00)
Saturday 15 May
Toulon vs Clermont or Racing-Metro (Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, Saint-Etienne, 16:30)
FINAL
Saturday 29 May (Stade de France, St Denis, Paris) |