Clermont indiscipline allows a Cooney-inspired Ulster to strike
Ulster got their Champions Cup campaign off to a strong start with a 29-23 victory over Clermont in France. It was Ulster’s first-ever win at the Stade Marcel-Michelin, with Stuart McCloskey and Nick Timoney scoring their tries and John Cooney kicking 19 points. Damian Penaud crossed for a brace of tries for Clermont and JJ Hanrahan contributed 13 points from the kicking tee.
Ulster totally dominated the first quarter of the game, with Clermont’s indiscipline costing them dearly. The visitors opened the scoring, with Cooney nudging over a penalty from short range.
There was some great interplay between Ulster’s backs and forwards as Robert Baloucoune raced clear before linking up with Michael Lowry, who was brought down just short of the line. But Ulster’s pressure forced Clermont to infringe, with Cooney doubling their lead from the kicking tee. Cooney knocked over a third penalty after 15 minutes to give the visitors a 9-0 lead.
Clermont were struggling to contain Ulster’s back-line, with powerful inside centre McCloskey causing havoc. And he claimed Ulster’s first try as he powered his way over from short range after some powerful carries from the visiting forwards, with new signing Duane Vermeulen in the thick of it.
But just when Ulster seemed to be running away with it, Clermont hit back with a perfectly-weighted cross-kick from Gabin Michet gathered and touched down by Penaud. After a long consultation with the television match official, referee Wayne Barnes awarded the try.
Hanrahan added the extras, but Clermont were soon reduced to 14 men when Jacobus van Tonder was shown a yellow card for a high tackle on Baloucoune. Cooney and Hanrahan exchanged three points meaning Ulster held a strong 19-10 lead at the interval. Clermont were a lot more physical and disciplined after the break and made it a one-score game with a superb try.
Former Munster outside-half Hanrahan broke clear before releasing Penaud on his outside. The France wing chipped the ball ahead and showed tremendous pace to win the foot race and score, with Hanrahan adding the extras to make it a two-point game.
All the momentum was now with Clermont, and they very nearly scored a third try when Hanrahan made a 60-metre break, with Ulster forced to infringe at the breakdown. Hanrahan kicked Clermont into the lead for the first time in the game in the 63rd minute.
Ulster came right back at Clermont with a terrific break from James Hume putting them deep into the opposition 22. Full-back Lowry attempted to offload the ball to McCloskey just five metres short of the try line, but Clermont’s Cheikh Tiberghien deliberately slapped the ball forward before Timoney picked it up to score.
Cooney added the extras and Tiberghien was sent to the sin bin for the deliberate knock-on. Cooney made it a nine-point game with a successful penalty from inside his own half to seal a famous win for Ulster. Hanrahan kicked a late penalty to give Clermont a losing bonus point.
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Well that sux.
Go to commentsLike I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.
Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.
So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).
You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.
I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?
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