Top 14, r18: Michalak's miss proves
costly as Clermont Auvergne win 16-15 at Toulouse
10 January 2010
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Costly miss: Frédéric Michalak
Photo: Michael Paler |
Clermont
Auvergne continued their excellent recent to form to grab a
nerve-jangling 16-15 victory away to Stade Toulousain.
'Les
Jaunards' fought back from 15-6 down after just 23 minutes,
but were thankful for Frédéric Michalak's last-minute
penalty miss as the Stade Toulousain slumped to their first
home defeat of the season.
Indeed,
it was their first home defeat since the 2007/8 season, but
that too was against Clermont.
The
victory was all the sweeter for Vern Cotter and his team as
Clermont had rested several players ahead of next weekend's
crucial Heineken Cup clash with the Ospreys.
Stade
Toulousain dominated the initial play but had to wait until
the 11th minute before opening their account after fly-half
Jean-Baptiste Elissalde had missed with two earlier pots at
goal.
But
their pressure finally told when a mix-up between Clermont
half-backs Kevin Senio and Tasesa Lavea presented the
ever-eager William Servat with opportunity to stretch his
powerful legs. The Stade hooker progressed from the halfway
line up to the 22 before Frédéric Michalak spun a long pass
for South African flanker Shaun Sowerby to score in the
corner.
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Elissalde was off target once more with his conversion
attempt, enabling Sérémaia Bai to reduce the deficit with a
35m penalty just before the quarter hour. Elissalde and Bai
then exchanged drop-goals before Vincent Clerc raced in for
Stade's second try as he easily outpaced injured Clermont
full-back Benoît Baby, to the obvious delight of the home
crowd.
Elissalde added the extras this time to put Stade 15-6
ahead, but another Bai penalty kept Clermont in touch as he
narrowed the gap to six points at the interval. Anthony
Floch and Michalak both missed long-range efforts to add to
the score before the break, but Stade deservedly went in
ahead after dominating for long periods.
The twin aims of the second half must have
been to ensure the win and look for a third try - but they
failed on both scores. And how they must now regret when
they came mighty close to the latter on 52 minutes when Yann
David broke through to the 22. A simple pass to the unmarked
Clement Poitrenaud on his outside would have surely led to a
score, but David failed to see the overlap and turned inside
instead.
Relieved
by the let-off Clermont then enjoyed a period of pressure
which brought three attempts at goal in four minutes, but
sadly for the visitors they missed with each one. Floch
began with a failed drop-goal from 40m, before Bai fell
short with a penalty attempt from a similar distance. A
second penalty soon after was also spurned when Floch missed
from the Toulouse 10m line.
Those
triple failures looked set to haunt the visitors before
replacement scrumhalf Morgan Parra fed Lavea on 66 minutes,
with the New Zealander racing between Patricio Albacete and
Johnston before scoring in the corner. Parra added the
conversion to then put 'Les Jaunards' 16-15 ahead with just
under a quarter of an hour to play.
Parra
could have extended that further with a 35m penalty just two
minutes later, but the visitors' profligacy continued.
Toulouse, inevitably, threw everything they had at Clermont
as time ran down, and their mounting pressure reach an
almost inevitable crescendo when they won a penalty 30m out
in the final minute. Michalak stepped up to take it, but the
France international pulled it wide with the last kick of
the match, leaving jubilant Clermont to celebrate their
second victory in 'La Ville Rose' in three years.
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