Paul Rouget, Media365: published on Monday November 4, 2024 at 11:02 a.m.
Find the main information to remember at the end of a 9th day of Top 14 which saw LOU fall again, Toulouse bow without losing its lead and Wainiqolo still shine.
The best: Bayonne
And four! Rowing achieved a fourth success in a row in the Top 14 by dominating leader Toulouse on Sunday evening at the end of this 9th day (12-8), thanks to a double from the Fijian Sireli Maqala. The Basques are firmly established at the foot of the podium, four points behind the Haut-Garonnais, although certainly diminished. But everything was not perfect as recalled by Camille Lopez, who regretted the approximations of a Bayonne team that was increasingly demanding of itself.
The flop: Lyon
LOU continues to slide in the rankings. The Rhone residents suffered their third defeat in a row and the fourth in five games on Saturday in Toulon (10-21). They go down to 10th and now have 30 tries conceded after 9 days. And if they dominated the second act at Mayol, the Lyonnais will not have managed to cross the defensive curtain of the Var once, a first this season.
The best player: Jiuta Wainiqolo (Toulon)
Humiliated by Toulouse six days earlier (5-57), the Toulonnais reacted well by dominating LOU in Mayol (21-10). And they can still thank Jiuta Wainiqolo. Already dazzling for his debut in Toulouse two weeks earlier against Montpellier, the Fijian scored one of the best tries of the season against the Lyonnais, after a real festival in the opposing defense.
The key figures
4
If Castres maintained its invincibility at home by defeating Montpellier on Saturday (30-26), it was thanks to a try from captain Mathieu Babillot four minutes after the siren that the CO managed to win at the end of the suspense. “A close victory, at the finish, like that, it does a lot of good. But it could have gone the other way, so we have to stay measured,” then tempered the hero of the day.
6
Like the number of defeats for Stade Français after 9 days. A catastrophic start to the season for the Parisians, semi-finalists last year and now penultimate in the ranking and play-offs after their defeat in La Rochelle (18-35), where they collapsed in the second half.
