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Montpellier and Castres boost top-six hopes
By Alex Fisher
Castres turned on the style in the second half of their Top 14 clash with Bordeaux Begles on Sunday to win 29-17 and boost their hopes of a top-six finish.
A tight but entertaining opening 40 minutes saw visitors Castres go in 16-14 ahead, tries from Horacio Agulla and Anthony Jelonch making the difference.
Bordeaux's chances of a turnaround dwindled after the break and even a yellow card for Mathieu Babillot failed to halt Castres' momentum.
Two penalties from Julien Dumora and a converted Marc-Antoine Rallier try extended Castres' advantage, while stretching Bordeaux's winless run to six league games.
Castres briefly occupied third place in the table, but Montpellier finished the day in that spot after a 27-18 win over Toulouse.
A Paul Willemse try was converted by Willie du Plessis to cancel out Sebastien Bezy's early penalty and Du Plessis added another two kicks as Montpellier opened up a 10-point advantage just before the break.
Toulouse did edge the second-half scoring 15-14 as Census Johnston and Alexis Palisson crossed, but it was not enough, with Timoci Nagusa and Yvan Reilhac responding for the hosts.
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Latest Comments
I think we need to get innovative with the new laws.
Now red cards are only 20 minutes, Razor should send Finau on a head hunting mission to hospitalise their 10 with a shoulder to the chops.
Give the conspiracy theorists a win.
Go to commentsEngland played well enough to win but couldnt score when they needed to and couldnt defend a couple of X-Factor moments from Telea which was ultimately the difference. They needed to hold the ball more and make the AB's make more tackles. Territorially they were good for the first 60. Defending their lead and playing pragmatic rugby in the last 20 was silly. The AB's always had the potential to come back. England still have a long way to go, definite progress would have been shown had they won but it seems they are still stuck where they were shortly after the six nations and their tour to NZ
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