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 27 August 2008
Toulon 22
Clermont 16
Perpignan 34
Brive 18
Castres 26
Bayonne 27
Dax 9 Stade
Francais 31
Montpellier 16
Toulouse 11
Montauban 37
Mont-de-Marsan 19
Biarritz 29
Bourgoin 22
Last year’s
champions (Toulouse) and runners-up (Clermont) both suffered
opening day defeats as the 2008/9 Top 14 season kicked off
in spectacular fashion on Tuesday night.
All seemed well
for Toulouse when Cedric Heymans opened the scoring at
Montpellier after a scrappy first quarter, and they even
managed to weather the temporary loss of scrum-half Byron
Kelleher for 10 minutes when the former All-Black was
sin-binned for slowing the ball.
But an 8-3
half-time advantage was soon overturned when Ollie Smith
pressurised Patricio Albacete sufficiently to cough up
possession for Thierry Brana to touch down.
Argentine
fly-half Frederico Todeschini added the conversion and two
more penalties to ensure the shock win, with debutant Justin
Marshall coming on to good effect after the break to help
quell the threat of his former All-Black scrum-half rival
Kelleher.
Toulon’s win
against Clermont owed everything to a 20-minute spell after
half-time when the home side ran in three tries to fight
back from 0-13 to win 22-16. Inevitably, it was
controversial rugby league convert Sonny ‘Bill’ Williams who
started the fight-back, taking advantage of a missed high
ball to open his Toulon account just two minutes after
coming on as a replacement for full-back Olivier Grimaud.
Prop David
Banquet and Czech wing Martin Jagr added further tries to
seal the win in front of an ecstatic full house as Tana
Umaga’s Top14 newcomers started in the best possible
fashion.
American winger
Takudzwa Ngwenya was the Biarritz hero, scoring twice in the
second-half to help orchestrate a 29-22 victory over
Bourgoin, while Italian captain Sergio Parisse did likewise
for Stade Francais as they thumped relegation favourites Dax
31-9 – going top of the table on points in the process.
Down in
Perpignan the home side overcame Brive 34-18 while a brace
of tries from Fijian wing Vilimoni Delasau saw Montauban
open up with a 37-19 victory over division newcomers
Mont-de-Marsan.
The final match saw
Bayonne hold out for 30 minutes to win 27-26 in Castres.
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