Clermont fall in Agen

Following the Paris match was a highly anticipated weekend off, as many of the players are feeling the pains of the long and enduring season. It wasn't a week off of training, however, but it was much lighter than normal. Preparing for our match-up at home against the reigning Top 14 Champions was quite an experience. It was a pretty hard week in regards to training, and I actually thought by the end of the week our forwards would be too tired for the contest. However, it was our forwards that kept us on the front foot all game, both defensively and offensively. I was on the bench for this match, an unlikely role for a winger, but played the last 3 minutes.

It was a "uh-oh" type of start for us as we dropped the first kickoff and turned the ball over in our own 22. We played some solid defense to get out of it, but then lost the ensuing scrum and again had to play defense within our 5 meter line. The relentless attack of Clermont was being stopped formidably by our defense; but after a penalty, the very alert French-capped scrum half quick-tapped, doubled around and was able to slip through for a try 4 minutes into the game.

If this was the first half of the season, we might have put our heads down and gotten complacent. But this Agen team is much different now and stood up to the challenge, played some excellent running rugby and earned a penalty to make the score 3-7. We knew we could play with them and we played well; 5 minutes later we scored a try, which was a great individual run by our flanker. This was the beginning of an onslaught of points for us as we scored another penalty and another try before the 18 minute mark and brought the scoreline to 20-7 in our favor. It was a great performance overall and a feeling of relief to finished ahead in a "must-win" game. Final score: 26-17

Next week is another one of those however, at home against Castres, who are currently sitting 3rd in the Top 14. We are still at the 11th position, 1 point ahead of Brive, who also won on the weekend against the bottomless Bourgoin team. Here are the standings with just 4 games left:

Toulouse         69
Racing Metro  68
Castres            63
Biarritz            62
Montpellier      61
Perpignan        58
Clermont         58
Toulon            56
Bayonne         54
Paris               49
Agen              38
Brive              37
La Rochelle    33
Bourgoin          5