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Clermont's All Black scores twice in Grenoble thrashing
By Rob Lancaster
Clermont Auvergne closed the gap on Toulouse at the Top 14 summit in style by thrashing Grenoble on Saturday – but high-flying Lyon surprisingly slipped up at home to Castres.
George Moala scored two of his side's seven tries as Clermont ran out 52-17 winners at Parc des Sports Marcel Michelin, with the landslide result moving them to within a point of the leaders.
However, Toulouse are yet to play in round 18 of the competition as they head to Stade Aime Giral to take on bottom club Perpignan on Sunday.
Taylor Paris and Kevin Firmin scored first-half tries as Castres upset Lyon, triumphing 23-15 to move up to fifth in the standings.
Jonathan Wisniewski kicked five penalties in a losing cause, but Lyon remain in third place thanks to nearest rivals La Rochelle going down 50-14 to Racing 92.
Teddy Thomas scored a hat-trick of tries in the resounding win while Finn Russell - who missed Scotland's Six Nations clash with France last weekend due to concussion - crossed the line once and also kicked a pair of conversions on his return to action.
Pau opened an eight-point gap over Agen after prevailing in the battle between 11th and 12th in the table, Colin Slade converting all three of his side's tries and also knocking over two penalties in a 27-17 triumph.
In Saturday's other top-flight fixture in France, Montpellier were too strong for Bordeaux-Begles, crossing for five tries in an emphatic 37-10 result.
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Latest Comments
we need a damaging 12 that takes 2 men to tackle that will take pressure off the 10 while also creating space for the 10 and 13 . Leicester is the only guy that fits the mould . The next thing is " will he be able to develop a good offload " ? .
for 13 Joey manu has more x factor then reiko and jordie put togeather . he's got one season in japan before he looks to come home . he's a dark horse but his skill set is something the All Blacks don't have . if he comes home and lights up the npc in a game or 2 , id love to see him fast tracked and come off the bench for the All Blacks and thrown into the deep end to see if he can swim . Just to see if he's worth the time and effort to develop further . We all saw how good sualii did for the wallabies and joey manu is just as good as sualii . He's safe under the high ball , a solid defender , has a master offload , and he's fast and strong .
he fits the mould for razor's offload tactics .
Plus reiko and jordie have had the 12 & 13 for how long and I haven't seen anything special from either of them .
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