Racing hold edge in battle for second after Bordeaux battering
The battle for the second place in the Top 14 will go down to the final game of the regular season after Racing 92 thrashed Bordeaux-Begles 39-15 and Toulouse struck a blow to La Rochelle's play-off aspirations.
Second-placed Racing hold a one-point advantage over Toulouse following a bonus-point defeat of Bordeaux at Stade Chaban-Delmas on Sunday.
The European Champions Cup finalists will fancy their chances of joining Montpellier in the semi-finals, with a home clash with Agen to come next weekend.
Six points from the boot of Dan Carter gave Racing a 6-0 half-time advantage and they ran riot after the break, Juan Imhoff claiming a double and Louis Dupichot, Teddy Thomas and Leone Nakarawa also going over.
Jean-Baptiste Dubie and Florian Dufour crossed late on for a Bordeaux side with nothing but pride to play for, but rampant Racing had already done enough to win it by then, fly-half Carter finishing with 14 points.
Toulouse missed out on a bonus point in a 19-14 win over La Rochelle later in the day, the excellent Piula Faasalele scoring their only try in the first half.
Thomas Ramos was on target with four penalties and there was drama when Gillian Galan was sent off right at the end after Victor Vito gave La Rochelle hope with a try 14 minutes from time.
Toulouse travel to Clermont Auvergne next Saturday, while La Rochelle host Stade Francais with their fate out of their hands, trailing sixth-placed Castres by two points and Lyon by four.
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Who got the benefits out of Schmidt, Lowe, Aki, and Gibson Park?
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
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