Mathieu Warnier, Media365, published on Sunday January 5, 2025 at 11:00 p.m.
At the end of a tight match from start to finish, Clermont did what was necessary to win by the smallest of margins in Vannes (19-20), more than ever at the bottom of the Top 14.
Clermont enforced the hierarchy. Traveling to the lawn of the red lantern, Vannes, the Auvergne club sought a short but precious success. From the outset, the Jaunards put pressure on them but were unable to find a loophole. A four-minute sequence which ended with a yellow card for Killian Tixeront. The ASM third row was guilty of a high tackle on Vannes fullback Paul Surano, who had just recovered an Auvergne clearance. A numerical superiority which gave breath to the Breton team. After bringing down the Clermont scrum, Jean-Noël Spitzer's players ended up finding the solution. On a five-meter penalty played manually, the RCV forwards first challenged the Auvergne defensive curtain then Maxime Lafage was able to extend his pass towards the right wing and Romaric Camou, who took advantage of the gap to go and flatten the first try of the match into a corner. With an unacademic shot from the corner, Maxime Lafage made the transformation. An advantage that the Bretons had no difficulty in defending at first, taking advantage of the blunders of their opponents, in particular a penalty on which Anthony Belleau sent the ball into a dead ball instead of the touchline. Nevertheless, the ASM scorer was able to recover a quarter of an hour from the break by unlocking his team's counter with a long-distance penalty.
Clermont knew how to have a respondent
Except that the latter, after irregularly keeping the ball on the ground, offered his opponent the opportunity to restore the seven-point gap. Maxime Lafage did not miss the opportunity. But it was the Jaunards who finished this first act better. Indeed, six minutes from the siren, a carried ball initiated on a touch obtained by a 50-22, Régis Montagne made the last effort to flatten in the Vannes goal. Anthony Belleau then tied the two teams by converting. On the siren, the ASM scorer added three points to allow his team to take the lead by three points at half-time. An advantage erased barely three minutes after the restart, Maxime Lafage improving a new ground fault from Clermontois. Ten minutes later, while the two teams began to open their benches, the RCV scorer made the most of an irregular tackle from Barnabé Massa to give his team three points ahead. However, the Clermontois began to find space and invest the opposing 22 meters. At the end of a sequence of possession, Alex Newsome saw a space open up in the Breton defensive curtain and exploited it to go to queen. Anthony Belleau then underwent the transformation. A four-point lead for ASM which could have held for barely two minutes if Salesi Rayasi had not seen the Clermont fly-half make a comeback at the last minute to flatten in his in-goal before him.
Vannes pushed to the end, in vain
Pushing to get a success at home, the Vannetais accelerated at the start of the last 20 minutes. Maxime Lafage once again saw the Clermont players make mistakes in the ground game and, 30 meters to the right of the poles, brought his team back to a point with a little over ten minutes before the siren. Throwing all their strength into the battle, the RCV players, however, did not have success with them. Coming on in place of Michael Ruru at scrum-half for the end of the match, Stephen Varney released the ball forward while his team was ten meters from the line. However, Anthony Belleau being short on the clearance, the pressure remained on the ASM defense in the last minute of regulation time. A good scratch from Alexandre Fischer just before the siren ended the suspense. By the smallest of margins, Clermont brings back the four points from the victory of this trip to Vannes (19-20) and moves up to fourth place. This fifth defeat at home this season puts the promoted Breton in a very delicate situation in the standings at the start of the second half of the season. Indeed, the RCV is now seven points behind the play-off, Stade Français Paris. The maintenance mission promises to be very complicated for the Bretons.
