We rarely get bored in Clermont – Toulon and this first opus of the 2024-2025 season did not break the rule. ASM won at the end of the suspense (19-18) on Sunday in its lair of Marcel-Michelin, in a scorers’ match. Benjamin Urdapilleta delivered his team three minutes from the end, to sign a third victory in five days and lift his team into the Top 6 of the championship. Toulon slips to fourth place and may harbor regrets.
Four minutes is the time during which the Jaunards will have led in this part. These 215 seconds bring all the happiness to Christophe Urios’ men, and all the frustration to the visitors. Because Toulon led, then dominated this game, played in pouring rain which greatly harmed the quality of the show. This has long amounted to a festival of inaccuracies and errors, punished by the two home scorers Benjamin Urdapilleta and Baptiste Serin.
Author of a great performance, the French XV international scored his team’s 18 points with the surgical precision of his foot despite the conditions. Serin perhaps thought he had done the hardest part by allowing Toulon to lead 9-18 with 25 minutes to go, in a game that had until then been very dull and without the slightest attempt. But by focusing only on its occupation of the field and on Clermont’s mistakes, the RCT forgot to take shelter through the game. And Clermont, more impactful but terribly imprecise, allowed itself to be emboldened by its audience and its replacements.
Urdapilleta master of suspense
A long highlight allowed Benjamin Urdapilleta to let his vision speak, with a subtle blind inside pass to serve his compatriot Bautista Delguy, author of the only try of the evening (64th). The veteran (39 years old) who announced on Saturday the end of his professional career at the end of the season came close to playing the hero for the first time, with an improbable drop of 50 meters. Then he punished the Toulon defense one last time, making a mistake at 14 against 15 and punished by the success of the former Castres (19-18, 77th).
The Rade team will certainly have had something to say about the refereeing, from this yellow card addressed to Charles Ollivon twelve minutes from the end for a tackle on a so-called “crocodile” hold, to its last opportunity without a whistle. The sanction on Ollivon for a new rule in place since this season when a player hugs his opponent by turning him around, causing a twist, responds to a certain logic. The RCT technician, Pierre Mignoni, mad with rage, will have something else to say for what he considered a forgotten penalty on the last push of his players one minute from the end. “It was a show, it was a sketchlamented pillar Dany Priso at the microphone of Canal +. It’s heartbreaking. We’re getting screwed, but that’s how it is.“
Toulon brings back the defensive bonus, and a point as in its first four outings in Top 14. But it misses an opportunity to join UBB and La Rochelle in the lead. For Clermont, this success, which looks like a hold-up, washes away the affront of the slap received in Perpignan (33-3) last week. It will now be necessary for Christophe Urios and his players to demonstrate more control to avoid such fears and hope to stay in the rhythm of the Top 6, synonymous with the final phases which have been fleeing the Jaunards since 2021.
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