Biarritz finally put a smile on French rugby as they hammered Newport Gwent Dragons 49-13 to become the only side still boasting a 100% win record after three rounds of the Heineken Cup.

The Basques rattled up six tries in all, with England World Cup winner Iain Balshaw claiming two as they put the Dragons to the sword. American speedster Takudzwa Ngwenya also touched down - following his hat-trick against Gloucester in round two - while Dimitri Yachvili and Valentin Courrent also got on the scoresheet. Yachvili added four conversions and three penalties - for a match haul of 22 points - while Biarritz's rampaging forwards also earned a penalty try.

Heineken Cup Pools & Fixtures

The victory leaves Biarritz nine points clear in Pool 2 and within passing distance of a quarter-final berth. Another victory in Newport next weekend will surely confirm that as the Basques seek to rekindle a season which had shown signs of wavering in recent weeks.

Head coach Lorenzo Rodriguez even offered his resignation last Monday after their league defeat to bottom club SCA Albi, but now it's dreams of a Paris final that will be foremost in the club's minds. They may not be in the most formidable of groups but any team which can rack up 91 points in two home games must be a serious threat.

And Top 14 will be thankful for that after a weekend in which four of their six representatives slipped to defeat.

The only other victors were Clermont Auvergne, but what a win! 'Les Jaunards' were simply magnificent as they tore Leicester Tigers to shreds, running in five tries for a bonus point 40-30 win against last season's runners-up.

Fijian flyer Napolioni Nalaga grabbed two tries, with French internationals Alexandre Lapandry and Morgan Parra also scoring on a memorable afternoon at the Stade Marcel Michelin. Canadian Jamie Cudmore got their fifth, while the five-time finalists fought back with three late scores in 10 minutes thanks to efforts from Anthony Allen, Toby Flood and Jeremy Staunton to narrow the eventual losing margin.

Twice-champions Leicester had won both previous meetings with Clermont in the Heineken Cup, but Vern Cotter's team blitzed their opponents with some typically forthright rugby.

The hosts were 25-9 up at half-time, but refused to let up as they sought to gain maximum credit ahead of next week's return fixture. Australian fly-half Brock James added three conversions and a pair of penalties to keep the scoreboard ticking, while full-back Anthony Floch also chipped in with a drop-goal.

The result lifted them level with Pool leaders Ospreys on 11 points, three ahead of the Tigers at the halfway stage of the pool games. The Ospreys trounced Viadana 62-7 in Italy on Saturday.

Brive's torrid Heineken Cup campaign continued with a 36-3 home thumping by London Irish on Saturday evening.

The Limousin club was beaten 36-13 at home by Leinster in round two and has now lost all three pool matches on its return to the competition it won in 1997. They were simply outclassed by the Guinness Premiership opponents, with the Exiles running in five unanswered tries in a lopsided affair.

To compound matters for the home side they had Guillaume Ribes sent off on 67 minutes for dangerous play as Brive threatened to allow their frustrations get the better of them.

Chris Malone and Tom Homer both went over for first-half tries as the visitors assumed control, with Steffon Armitage, Richard Thorpe and Homer again adding further tries after the break.

Brive's only response was a long-range penalty from Alexis Palisson just before half-time.

After that it was more a case of attempted containment, with ill-discipline eventually surfacing near the end of a trying evening. Ribes saw red 13 minutes from time for punching Danie Coetzee, and Exile's South African hooker was subsequently sin-binned himself five minutes - along with Brive's Jean-Philippe Bonrepaux - for further scuffling.

London Irish took full toll as they ran in two of their five tries in the closing stages, leaving coach Toby Booth in buoyant mood after the final whistle. "We are delighted with the result because it was important to keep our hopes alive in the pool. It's a massive boost for us," he said.

Defending champions Leinster won 32-7 away to Scarlets in the other Pool 6 match, throwing the group wide open after the Welsh side comprehensively lost their 100% win record. Remarkably, it means five of the six pool matches have now been won by the away side.

London Irish now head Pool 6, although they are level on points with Leinster's 10, with Scarlets now third-placed on eight. Brive, sadly, remain pointless.

There was further French disappointment in Cardiff, where the Blues beat Stade Toulousain 15-9 in a re-run of last season's quarter-final - which Cardiff also won.

The defeat extended Stade's woeful away record this season, with this being their seventh defeat in 10 games, and their fourth on the spin.

Once more, as with last year's clash, it was a try-less affair, with the Blues edging into a 6-0 half-time lead courtesy of two Ben Blair penalties. The Cardiff fly-half full-back added two more after the break, with Leigh Halfpenny supplementing another to ensure another famous home win.

Stade's response was too little and too late, although nine points from the accumulated boots of Florian Fritz, Frédéric Michalak and David Skrela did at least enable them to claim the defensive bonus.

It could have been even better for the visitors had Fritz not missed with a late penalty to level the scores (at 12-12), after which Halfpenny's successful reply merely rubbed salt into their wounds.

The result means Cardiff have closed the gap to just one point behind Toulouse in Pool 5 ahead of next week's second installment.

"Cardiff were more efficient than us with their kicking game," conceded Stade coach Guy Noves. "We were not patient enough. We should have been able to build four or five more phases when we attacked. With a little bit more patience next week I think we can hurt them," he added.

Sale Sharks are level with Cardiff on nine points after they won 29-19 at Harlequins on Sunday in the other Pool 5 match, with former Brive and England winger getting the last of their four tries.

France's other Stade - Paris' Stade Francais - were also weekend losers, going down 23-13 to Ulster at Ravenhill to open up Pool 4, and leave them level on points with the French side ahead of next week's re-match in Brussels.

The Irish side opened up a 13-6 half-time advantage thanks to Nigel Brady's try, and went further ahead after the interval when Simon Danielli went over after good work from Stephen Ferris. Fly-half Ian Humphreys kicked both conversions, as well as three penalties.

Winger Julien Arias did manage to cross for Stade late on, but it wasn't enough to earn a defensive bonus after a tetchy match that brought three yellow cards - for Stade's Julien Dupuy and David Attoub, and also for Ulster's Bryan Young.

On Friday, French champions Perpignan outscored Munster by three tries to nil at Thomond Park, but still lost by a point as their ill-discipline allowed Ronan O'Gara to kick the Irish to victory.

The Catalans will be absolutely gutted not to have come away with the win, and how they will be sick of the sound of referee Wayne Barnes' whistle. Time after time they were penalized by the Englishman - at the breakdown, in the scrum, in open play... seemingly anywhere and everywhere - and O'Gara could even afford three misses in addition to his seven penalty successes (and a nifty left-footed drop-goal).

The 'what ifs' could go on for weeks as Perpignan's players ponder how they lost despite tries from Yoann Vivalda, Nicolas Durand and Phil Burger, but they will have to pick themselves up and  ready themselves for battle once more when Munster visit the Stade Aimé Giral next Sunday. They did at least get a defensive bonus, but it could have been so much more. Victory in Limerick would also have gone a long way towards erasing the horror of their round one defeat to Benetton Treviso. But, it was not to be.

The Top 14 champions had gone into the match with a back-row injury crisis robbing them of half a dozen options, but Vivalda's quick reactions to spilt lineout ball enabled the 21-year-old flanker to gather and run-in for a memorable try in the corner after just five minutes play. O'Gara had already kicked a simple penalty, but Perpignan's opportunism stunned the red army, both on the pitch and in the stands.

Jérôme Porical missed the ensuing conversion, and Munster were soon back in the lead when O'Gara's second penalty success made it 6-5 after 10 minutes. But Perpignan were not done yet, and they caused further consternation when scrum-half Nicolas Durand touched down just two minutes later. Again the score stemmed from a lineout, although Perpignan won it this time with Robins Tchale Watchou feeding hooker Guilhem Guirado to break through before passing to Durand, who sidestepped Doug Howlett and screamed over. Two tries in the opening 12 minutes, and this time Porical added the extras to make it 6-12 to the visitors.

The Irish responded with plenty of possession, but penalties always seemed their most likely method of scoring as they failed to breach Top 14's meanest defence. O'Gara duly landed two more to leave it all square 12-12 at half-time and intriguingly poised.

Home domination continued after the break, with Perpignan happy to soak up pressure and try and hit Munster on the break, or on their rare forays forward. But with pressure came the ref's whistle, and the home side had edged 21-15 ahead by 63 minutes with O'Gara slipping in a drop-goal to add to another brace of penalties.

Two minutes later David Mele - on as a replacement for Durand - kicked a penalty in reply with his first touch of the game, before substitute Phil Burger made an even more dramatic entrance as he sped on to claim a Munster kick and then raced 70m to claim the try of the evening. Suddenly Perpignan were 21-23 ahead with 11 minutes remaining, but Mele crucially missed the conversion.

With so much time still to play it was inevitable what would happen next, and sure enough O'Gara found himself with yet another penalty opportunity after Bertrand Guiry's high tackle in front of the posts on 73 minutes. The resultant kick proved the difference, with O'Gara able to silence a few critics to boot as he claimed all 24 points for the hosts. It proved a close-run thing, but Munster just did enough in the end, with Perpignan left channel their frustrations into next week's return fixture.

In the other Heineken Cup match on Friday night Glasgow Warriors beat Gloucester 33-11 in Pool 2, with Dan Parks kicking seven penalties and a conversion. Gloucester actually scored the first try of the evening when Charlie Sharples went over in the 22nd minute, but Glasgow hit back with scores from Max Evans and Bernardo Stortoni in the 32nd and 37th minutes.