Top 14: Biarritz maintain Heineken hopes with crucial home win against Perpignan

17 April 2009

Biarritz 12 (9) Perpignan 10 (7)

In-form Biarritz maintained their push for Heineken Cup qualification with a hard-fought 12-10 home victory against Perpignan.

Les Biarrots were once more indebted to the combined boots of internationals Damien Traille and Dimitri Yachvili as they recorded their seventh win in their last nine league games.

This latest win - secured with three Yachvili penalties and a second-minute drop-goal from Traille - lifted them up to sixth, for 24 hours at least, and above their Basque rivals Bayonne.

Bizarrely, the result was also enough to lift Perpignan temporarily to the Top 14 summit courtesy of the defensive bonus point they picked up - but that is almost sure to change again following Stade Toulousain's game at Toulon on Saturday.

Top 14 table

Traille's early drop-goal set Biarritz on their way, but there was never more than four points between the teams in a tetchy and highly competitive fixture.

Perpignan squandered a sixth-minute opportunity to regain parity when Nicolas Laharrague missed with a 50m pot at goal, but they found themselves ahead within 60 seconds after a decisive break from David Marty.

The international centre received the ball 35 metres out, but raced in under the posts for the game's only try after creating space with a canny dummy. Laharrague added the conversion to make it 7-3 to the Catalans after just seven minutes, and it was very much game on.

But while the visitors were enjoying plenty of possession Biarritz were dominant in the scrum, causing havoc for the Catalan front row of Nicolas Mas and Perry Freshwater throughout the evening.

Yachvili's 16th-minute penalty brought the hosts back to within a point and the combative scrum-half was on target again after half an hour when Maxime Mermoz's reckless tackle on Julien Peyrelongue brought a penalty and a yellow card.

Yachvili also saw yellow just five minutes later when tempers flared again, but the Basques held on to their narrow advantage to go in 9-7 ahead at the interval.

Traille opened up after the break with another audacious drop-goal attempt, but this time his 40m effort fell wide and it was Perpignan who scored first when Peyrelongue landed a 45m kick of his own after 44 minutes.

A missed penalty 10 minutes later was always likely to prove costly - together with two earlier failed attempts - and so it proved as Biarritz rallied as the half progressed. The mounting forwards' pressure eventually paid off when Yachvili slotted a 67th-minute penalty to regain the lead, and that's how it stayed until the final whistle.

Bayonne - beaten at home by Biarritz in the last round of matches - could yet regain sixth position if they win as expected on Saturday against Bourgoin, but the Basque rivalry looks set to run until the end of the season as the battle for Heineken Cup rugby spurs them both on.

Perpignan, meanwhile, will be sick of the Basque coast after falling to only their second defeat in 12 league games. Their other was - you guessed it - away to Bayonne on February 21st.

But this latest reverse shouldn't prove too costly as they still have a comfortable 11 point cushion over third-placed Stade Francais and have now confirmed their participation in the end of season play-offs.

© Copyright FrenchRugbyClub.com. All rights reserved.