Altrad sees his millions wasted at Montpellier
“Montpellier have a fight on their hands to reach the top six. They suffered a third home defeat of the season yesterday when beaten 28-23 by leaders Clermont”
Mohed Altrad is a billionaire who is finding his mountains of cash can not bring him happiness at club and country level in France. He has spent a small fortune putting the name of his company on the national team shirts and seen his investment tumble with Les Bleus hitting rock bottom.
Then there are his ambitions at club level. Already thwarted in his plan to take control of Gloucester, he must have expected better returns from his ownership of Montpellier.
Not so far, however, despite his spending more than £1m to bring South African Johan Goosen to join an already expensive outfit.
Only to suffer a third home defeat of the season yesterday when beaten 28-23 by leaders Clermont.
And that rescue of a bonus point was small consolation with the strongest team fielded this season by former Clermont boss Vern Cotter, who won the title with his old club.
He will have a job doing the same with underperforming Montpellier who have a fight on their hands to reach the top six.
Clermont’s quicksilver, powerful backs were too hot for them to handle, Wesley Fofana, Damian Penaud and Isaia Toeava scoring dashing tries.
Especially winger Penaud who collected a botched kick from Aaron Cruden close to his own try-line before beating five defenders in a run the length of the field.
That is the kind of dazzling stuff, backed by a balanced, experienced squad, that persuaded Top 14 coaches to vote Clermont favourites for the title before the season opened.
They have the luxury, too, of having two world-class scrum-halves Morgan Parra and Greig Laidlaw who stay fresh by sharing the workload.
Montpellier do have a monstrous scrum, their South African locks Jacques du Plessis and Paul Willemse weighing in at more than 40 stones.
They were mostly responsible for scrum-half Ruan Pienaar striking three penalties in the first half hour.
And for orchestrating the maul that allowed sub hooker Vincent Giudicell to touch down behind them.
That try deprived Clermont of a bonus and another one from sub centre Yvan Reilhac in the last minute gave Montpellier one of their own.
A disappointment for Clermont who had led by 14 points on the hour, but they will settle for that. Only a shame that English full-back Nick Abendenon is still missing the fun with a long-troubled shoulder.
At the other end of the table, Agen produced a shock win at well-placed champions Castres 16-13.
A welcome result for their Argentine manager Mauricio Reggiardo. Not only because it gives his team a better chance of performing once again a survival act.
But also because he will be in charge of Castres next season to replace boss Christophe Urios en route to Bordeaux-Begles.
He will admit that his future charges were responsible for their own defeat by having three of their players yellow-carded during the second half, reducing them to 13 men at one stage.
Centre Thomas Combezou, who had just scored a try, was first to go. Soon followed by flanker Mathieu Babillot and winger David Smith.
Such indiscipline eventually proved fatal, but it was not until two minutes from time that Agen struck out for victory.
And even then there was a suicidal element involved when scrum-half Rory Kockott dawdled long enough on the ball for Columbian flanker Andre Zafra Tarazona to charge it down and touch down.
Lyon took the opportunity of leapfrogging Castres in the top six when they beat Pau 30-10 for a bonusenhanced victory.
They registered five tries to deepen the crisis swirling around Pau whose top-six hopes are seriously receding. The recent threats from their board about job losses have had no impact.
And Lyon, at regular intervals, punctuated the encounter with tries, three in the first half from Kiwi winger Toby Arnold, full-back JeanMarcellin Buttin and Aussie No.8 Liam Gill.
The latter, incidentally, was replaced in the second half by English forward Carl Fearns as he continues his comeback from serious injury.
Sub lock Virgile Lacombe and Kiwi centre Charlie Ngatai completed the rout with Pau scrum-half Baptiste Pesenti replying.
Something had to give when thirdplaced La Rochelle met fourth-placed Racing, the former having won their last four games and the latter their last three.
A tight match was almost guaranteed and, in the end, La Rochelle extended the lead over their close rivals with a 16-11 win.
It was fairly attritional stuff with La Rochelle centre Pierre Aiguillon and Racing lock Leone Nakarawa scoring a try each in the first half.
Racing looked to be going home pointless until scrum-half Teddy Iribaren rescued a bonus point with a penalty well after the end of normal time.