Montpellier pull clear of Racing in Top 14
Racing 92 fell to a surprise defeat at Pau to fall six points behind Montpellier, who narrowly beat Bordeaux to pull clear at the Top 14 summit.
Montpellier won 11-10 on home soil, Jan Serfontein's try adding to a pair of Ruan Pienaar penalties, with Bordeaux left to count the cost of failing to convert either of Ed Fidow's scores.
Charlie Slade impressed for Pau, booting 11 points, as they kept their noses ahead of Racing throughout.
Watisoni Votu scored a second-half double to help Pau move level on points with Toulon and Toulouse in the final play-off spots, ahead of those sides' assignments on Sunday.
Racing's reverse snapped an eight-game winning run across all competitions and Castres are now just three points behind them in the table after beating Lyon 33-22.
Benjamin Urdapilleta kicked three penalties and converted veteran flanker Rodrigo Capo Ortega's score as Castres took a 16-7 lead into the interval.
They were soon behind, though, as Toby Arnold crossed twice, but the reliable Urdapilleta split the posts again before adding the extras to tries from Armand Batlle and Julien Dumora to take the game away from Lyon.
Agen climbed out of the bottom two by beating Stade Francais 36-34 in a thriller, while rock-bottom Oyonnax beat Clermont 18-12, just their second win of the season.
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The first half penalties against NZ were for speculative tackling because England were attacking so flat. If NZ didn't do this then it may have been tries and not penalties conceded earlier. I believe Felix Jones is still helping with the transition online. It was quite clear he wasn't helping in person with Earls in particular shooting up and leaving huge holes. NZ had a few that nearly stuck but the two tries by Telea were defensive errors. Furbank biting on Sititi leaving Genge to mark. Genge wont show Telea the outside again. Poor tacking on Telea for the second. That said he is a hard man to grab hold of.
Isolating Genge was clever for Jordans try. NZ spotted he defended wide too often and they could leave a gap with that switch play. 6 day turnaround for Ireland now.
I imagine NZ will be better, but they will need to be a lot better.
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