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Montpellier recorded their historic first away win in the Heineken Cup at Cardiff Arms Park and will be looking to do the double over the Cardiff Blues at home on Saturday evening. - 14/12/2012 09:40
Montpellier recorded their historic first away win in the Heineken Cup at Cardiff Arms Park and will be looking to do the double over the Cardiff Blues at home on Saturday evening.
The French side, who are in only their second season of Heineken Cup rugby, recorded a comfortable 35-24 win over the Welsh side and are now five points behind Pool leaders Toulon.
Another victory for Montpellier over the Blues would keep the pressure on their French rivals, who already look favourites to qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament.
Fabien Galthie’s Montpellier could still have a major impact in whether Jonny Wilkinson’s Toulon get the all-important home quarter-final in the next three rounds of this Pool.
The Cardiff Blues, who played with 14-men for most of the first leg defeat to Montpellier, will be looking to keep all their players on the field for the return fixture in France.
The Welsh region produced a creditable performance against Montpellier, after scrum-half Lloyd Williams was red-carded, but they are still looking for their first win in this season’s tournament.
Match Facts
• Alex Cuthbert is the joint-top try-scorer in the Heineken Cup with three touch downs so far, all of which came in their opening game at Sale.
• Collectively, Cardiff Blues have missed the most tackles in the tournament so far. Three Cardiff players (Josh Navidi, Lou Reed and Marc Breeze) are first, second and joint-third respectively on top of the missed tackles list.
• Montpellier are the only team in the tournament to have won every scrum they have had the feed at.
• Should Cardiff lose this game, it would be their worst run in the tournament since they lost five in a row in 2004/05.
Une victoire
Montpellier kept the group nicely on the boil with a 34-21 bonus point victory over struggling Cardiff Blues at Stade Yves du Manoir that drew them level with Toulon – who have a game in hand – on 13 points apiece.
The double over the Welsh club was their third win of the tournament but if Toulon get anything from their clash with Sale Sharks they will go back out on their own.
Wales captain Sam Warburton, who missed the Round 3 encounter with a chest infection, gave the Blues a flying start with a fourth minute try from an overthrown line-out before Martin Bustos Moyana and Rhys Patchell – who kicked all the Blues’ points in their 35-24 defeat at the Arms Park in Round 3 – exchanged penalties.
And another player getting into the scoring action again was Montpellier’s right wing Timoci Nagusa, one of their try scorers in Wales breaching the Blues defence on home soil this time as he scrambled over despite the close attentions of a number of Blues players.
Hooker Rassie van Vuuren got their second after 26 minutes and Bustos Moyana’s conversion allowed them to go into the break with a nine-point advantage.
Yoan Audrin, another to score in the back-to-back contests, eased Montpellier further ahead before Wales wing Alex Cuthbert went over for his fourth Blues try of the campaign to give them a glimmer of hope.
But Scotland international back rower Johnnie Beattie wrapped up the try bonus point with 24 minutes still on the clock which prompted the home club to make a raft of replacements.
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