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Video: Steffon Armitage wins Biarritz Top 14 promotion with sudden death shootout kick
By Liam Heagney
Former England back row Steffon Armitage was the toast of Biarritz on Saturday night after his penalty kick in a post-match penalty shootout following a 6-6 draw was decisive in his club's dramatic victory over local rivals Bayonne in the Top 14 promotion/relegation playoff.
Having lost last weekend's Pro D2 final against Perpignan, Biarritz didn't let their second opportunity to secure promotion slip in a historic Basque derby that pitted the tier-two beaten finalists against the 13th place team in the Top 14.
Biarritz led 3-0 at half-time thanks to a Gilles Bosch penalty but the match was forced into extra-time by an equalising kick from Bayonne's Maxime Lafage. The stalemate continued in extra-time, James Hart's penalty kick for the home side matched by Gaetan Germain's 94th-minute reply.
With the final ultimately finishing drawn at six-all, it was left to a kicking competition where players took kicks from the 22 in front of the posts to decide the winner. All ten kicks initially taken were scored, former All Blacks centre Francis Saili getting the last to force the contest to sudden death before Bayonne cracked with the eleventh kick of the shootout, Aymeric Luc sending his kick wide of the target.
That left Armitage, the Biarritz skipper, as the next man up and the 35-year-old back-rower, who has five England caps to his name, became the home team hero, his kick going between the uprights to spark wild celebrations.
It didn't take long for Armitage to revel in the novelty of winning a match in this unusual manner. Jordan Crane, the now-retired forward, kicked Leicester into the 2009 Heineken Cup final when their semi-final at the Millennium Stadium against Cardiff when into sudden death in a penalty shootout.
Eleven years later Crane was quick off the mark, posting the video of Armitage's kick and tweeting: "Welcome to the club." Armitage replied: "Was thinking of you the whole time!!"
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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