French Top 14 round six: Biarritz upsets Toulouse
Biarritz was able to come away with an upset over Toulouse at home in Parc des Sports Aguilera in their round six match-up over the weekend.
Biarritz surprised an underprepared Toulouse side with a victory at home over the weekend. Biarritz proved to be the better side early as they fought their way to a six point lead at halftime. After the break the two sides found themselves knotted up in
the 60th minute. However, a strong finish by the home team guaranteed them a 25-20 victory over Toulouse.
Recap
Toulouse opened up the scoring with a penalty from fly-half David Skrela in the game’s second minute, giving the guests an early 3-0 lead.
However, Biarritz answered back quickly with a try in the sixth minute from Eduard Coetzee. Scrum-half Dimitri Yachvili followed up with the conversion and the home side took a 7-3 advantage.
Yachvili then hit two consecutive penalties in the 12th and 27th minutes respectively, extending the host’s lead to 13-3.
Toulouse answered back with a try from William Servat in the 30th minute. Skrela hammered through the conversion and Toulouse cut the lead to 13-10.
Nevertheless, Yachvili continued his fine day from the tee hitting his third penalty in the 37th minute, allowing Biarritz to take a 16-10 lead into halftime.
After the break both sides came out strong as Yachvili and Skrela exchanged penalties to transform the lead to 19-13.
Toulouse was able to score their second try of the match in the 58th minute, courtesy of full-back Maxime Medard. Skrela passed through the conversion and Toulouse took the lead at 20-19.
However, the guests could do nothing to silence Yachvili’s boot, with the scrum-half remaining the catalyst of the Biarritz offence. Yachvili put through two more penalties in the 64th and 67th minutes respectively to earn his side
a 25-20 victory.
Analysis
Against all odds Biarritz was able to defeat one of the League favourites without scoring a try. With the win they now improve to .500 and have a chance of moving into the top seven with a win next week.
Meanwhile the question marks surrounding Toulouse continue to surface, as they were not able to claim victory over an 11th place Biarritz side. With the loss Toulouse falls to 3-3 and continue to show signs of inconsistency. Although they have
registered the most points-for in the League and currently have the best point-differential at plus-78, they cannot seem to win on a regular basis.
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