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Clermont pummel Pau, La Rochelle stay clear in Top 14
By Christopher Devine
Clermont Auvergne got back on track in the Top 14 on Saturday with a 65-13 hammering of Pau.
Successive defeats had seen Clermont lose the leadership of the league and fall eight points behind La Rochelle, but Franck Azema's men proved far too strong for a Pau side that had begun an eight-game unbeaten run with victory in the reverse fixture.
David Strettle scored a second-half brace and seven other home players crossed for tries in a one-sided encounter at Stade Marcel-Michelin.
La Rochelle responded to Clermont's emphatic victory by beating Brive 36-17 to remain clear at the top of the table.
The leaders effectively wrapped up the game before half-time with four first-half tries, Vincent Rattez, Elliot Roudil, Jason Eaton and Benjamin Noble all going over. Mathieu Tanguy also touched down at the end of the game.
#TOP14, J21
Pour le classement c'est par ici pic.twitter.com/0Szd0Kj3XH
— LNR.FR (@lnr_fr) March 18, 2017
Saturday's other fixture saw Bayonne run out 24-20 winners against Bordeaux-Begles at Stade Jean Dauger.
Bordeaux trailed by 15 points at the interval and their subsequent fightback was not enough to rescue victory.
The matches involving Stade Francais and Racing 92 had been postponed on Friday after stunning plans for a merger between the two clubs were announced.
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Latest Comments
Two very serious issues are never or seldom addressed in this type of articles: carbon emissions (and the rugby community is not supposed to be blind ito planet issues) and players health.
Clearly flying 10 000 kms every week back and forth doesn’t make any sense ito carbon emissions.
As the French top international players who won’t tour NZ next July, the Boks need to rest at some stage. And this seems a big issue between the July-November Boks commitments and the URC-Champions Cup fixtures. It seems that some focus, courageous decision making and a bit of humility are required.
Go to commentsMoriaty refused to play for wales also he’s injured, France’s is being coy about wales, North in the dark but Sam David and jerad are you joking their not good enough
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