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Stade limit Clermont lead with battling win
By Ben Spratt
Clermont Auvergne extended their lead at the Top 14 summit with a bonus-point victory over Castres, but Stade Francais battled past Montpellier to limit the damage.
Clermont ran in five tries as they hammered Castres 41-6 at Stade Marcel Michelin and now hold a three-point advantage at the top of the table.
After Rory Kockott's penalty for the visitors began the scoring, Damian Penaud, Peter Betham and Alivereti Raka all crossed before the half-hour mark.
Judicael Cancoriet and Peceli Yato touched down after the restart, with Laidlaw successfully converting every try and adding two penalties to finish with 16 points.
Sekou Macalou's late score handed Stade a 25-20 home win against Montpellier, who had Aaron Cruden in inspired form.
Cruden converted his own try and added the extras to Kevin Kornath's score in the 71st minute to put Montpellier two points ahead.
However, Macalou went over four minutes from time ensure Stade did not slip any further adrift of Clermont.
Antoine Dupoint scored a second-half hat-trick as Toulouse earned a bonus point in a 36-18 success at Perpignan.
Toulouse trailed at the break, but Dupoint crossed for three of four away tries following the restart to turn the match in his side's favour.
Racing 92 enjoyed a big win as they beat Pau 48-28, while Agen and Grenoble drew 9-9.
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Latest Comments
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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