Bayonne turning home into a fortress
JAMES HARRINGTON
FRENCH COLUMN
HEADING into the three-week international break, two Top 14 teams in particular will be pretty happy with their opening 10-game block. Leaders Toulouse are one. Thirty-five points in their 10 outings is comparable with their start last season, when they had 36 points and eight wins from their first set of matches. The other? Bayonne. The Basque side were promoted back to the French top flight as ProD2 champions at the first time of asking, and – early on, at least – are successfully demonstrating that they're not here just to make up numbers.
After 10 rounds, the Basque side have 25 points and six wins under their belt, picking up their first on the road this weekend at Clermont. They have claimed the scalps of Bordeaux, Racing 92, La Rochelle, Perpignan and Toulouse in their five matches at home – Jean Dauger, a sell-out every week so far this season – is turning into a fortress where even the biggest names fear to tread.
Don't expect Bayonne to celebrate too hard, even as they hit the break with an unlikely sixth win in 10. It is, as the players and coach Grégory Patat are well aware, a good start – arguably an excellent start – but nothing more.
Last season, Brive – currently bottom of the table after a disastrous run of results – won nine matches, and picked up 46 points, avoiding the promotion-relegation play-off place by three clear points.
But, the previous year, Bayonne won 10 and finished with 46 points, but still finished 13th in the table, and lost a dramatic promotion-relegation play-off at Biarritz on penalty kicks. As recently as 2015, 52 points – good enough for a ninth-place finish last season – wasn't enough to save the club from relegation. The 2022/23 campaign bears all the early hallmarks of a tight one. Heading into this weekend, four points, a simple victory without a try-scoring bonus, separated Stade Francais, in second, from Bordeaux, in 10th.
Bayonne finished their opening block of games with first win on the road at Clermont on Saturday. In their first four matches away from home, they had stayed games for 60 minutes, before falling away. They gave Toulon a real scare on the opening day, and were still in the hunt at Castres, Stade Francais and Brive – where they picked up a losing bonus point.
This time, they were not to be denied.
Patat has decided to rest a number of players this week, including fullback Gaetan Germain, who started all of Bayonne's first nine matches, while a number of other players returned from injury.
“The Basque side showing they're not here to make up the numbers”
But his squad recovered from conceding two early tries to head in at half-time just 12-10 down. They pulled themselves into a 22-15 lead before Clermont hit back through late replacement Thomas Roziere, who only played because Alivereti Raka withdrew with illness.
That was the hosts' last score of the game and the match was settled when Jason Robertson slotted a 40m penalty on the whistle to take the score to 25-20 in favour of the visitors.
It would not be unfair to describe the opening match of the Top 14 weekend, the Clasico between Toulouse and Stade Francais, as a handicap match, with the hosts stripped of a total 14 regular first team names to the November internationals. Toulouse academy player Paul Costes' first Top 14 try in the 79th minute levelled the scores at 16-16 – but Edgar Retiere fired the conversion, from out wide, into the upright.
The match was briefly disrupted as environmental protesters climbed onto a crossbar and attached themselves to the goalposts at one end of the pitch.
La Rochelle came back from a surprise early deficit at bottom-ofthe-table Brive to win 17-19, a try from replacement tighthead Leo Aouf and Antoine Hastoy's accuracy with the boot overhauling ex-Connacht centre Sammy Arnold's early interception try. The hosts' performance in defeat was more impressive than in recent weeks, but that will be little consolation for the squad, who head into the break well on the back of five consecutive defeats. The end of the first block could not have come, as the cliche goes, too soon.
Finn Russell was again in international form for Racing 92, pulling strings, kicking points and scoring a try, as they too survived an early scare at home against Perpignan – the hosts were 14-6 down after half-an-hour, before Wenceslas Lauret scored the first of this two tries of the match. Racing eventually scored five tries to win 44-20.
Lyon's defensive frailties threatened to come back to haunt them as they gave up a 10-point lead against Castres at Stade Gerland, before Ethan Dumortier finished off a lengthy period of pressure late in the game. The hosts eventually won 26-20.
The weekend's programming, altered because of France's Autumn Nations Series opener against Australia at Stade de France, concludes on Sunday with two matches – Pau v Bordeaux at Stade du Hameau, with the hosts hoping to build on their shock win at La Rochelle last weekend, and Toulon against Montpellier at Stade Mayol.
