France Top 14 2013/14 season Round Eight and the surprises continue to come, not least Oyonnax who this time out did for Toulon.
Friday night and Montpellier who were on a high travelled to Paris with big expectations. Stade Français Paris however, had other thoughts and it was the home side who came out on top 18-11. Paris led 10-3 at half-time and the scoring was even at eight a piece in the second half leaving Stade with the win.
Five games on Saturday and we will start at Oyonnax who are staring to get a reputation for knocking over the big guns. They may be the promoted side but they seem to have settled to elite rugby. So it was Oyonnax who held Toulon having been 16-19 behind at the break they went on to win 25-22 thanks to a seventy-seven minute drop goal. next and Bayonne Biarritz, another game Biarritz may wish to forget as they went down 27-19. This was 19-9 at the break and Biarritz never looked like taking the away win. casters Racing Metro was another with a tight scoreline as the home side ran out 19-15 winners. This was 13-9 at the break and Racing could not do enough in the second period to overhaul Castres. Grenoble Brive we saw as a golden opportunity for the home side but all they could do for us was draw 12-12. A shame as Grenoble were winning 12-6 at half-time and so lost the second half six nil. Perpignan Toulouse was billed as a mighty clash and so it proved. Perpignan threw everything at Toulouse and ran out to a 14-6 lead at the break, Toulouse did peg it back to seventeen sixteen before a seventy-four minute drop goal from James Hook sealed the win 20-16.
The weekend ended with just the one game on Sunday as fortress Parc des Sports Marcel Michelin and ASM Clermont hosted Bordeaux and took the easiest on the weekends wins 40-11. The scoreline did not look that likely when at half-time the sides turned round with Clermont leading 16-11. They did however cut loose in the second period scoring four of their five tries in the process. This moved Clermont up to second in the table two points behind Paris.
Four wrong calls again this week with the money teams letting us down again. Here are all the results.
Results Round Eight
Fri 27 Sep 19:45 Paris 18-11 Montpellier Stade Jean Bouin
Sat 28 Sep 13:55 Oyonnax 25-22 Toulon Stade Charles Mathon
Sat 28 Sep 17:30 Bayonne 27-19 Biarritz Stade Jean Dauger
Sat 28 Sep 17:30 Castres 19-15 Racing Metro Stade Pierre Antoine
Sat 28 Sep 17:30 Grenoble 12-12 Brive Stade Lesdiguières
Sat 28 Sep 19:35 Perpignan 20-16 Toulouse Stade Aimé Giral
Sun 29 Sep 11:30 Clermont 40-11 Bordeaux Parc des Sports Marcel Michelin
Round Nine and we have a couple of big battles as Toulon greet Clermont and Toulouse Paris, tricky but here are our picks in Bold:
Fixtures Round Nine
All Times UK
Fri 04 Oct 19:45 Biarritz v Perpignan Parc des Sports d’Aguilera
Sat 05 Oct 13:55 Toulon v Clermont Allianz Riviera
Sat 05 Oct 17:30 Brive v Castres Stade Amédée Domenech
Sat 05 Oct 17:30 Bordeaux v Bayonne Stade André Moga
Sat 05 Oct 17:30 Montpellier v Oyonnax Stade Yves Du Manoir
Sat 05 Oct 17:30 Racing Metro v Grenoble Stade Yves Du Manoir
Sat 05 Oct 19:40 Toulouse v Paris Stade Ernest Wallon