Cold and crisp was the order of the day or should I say evening, with a 21.00 ko. a swirling bitter cold wind and Montpellier were playing hosts to French Champions Toulouse.
With Christmas just round the corner, you would expect festive cheer and lots of gifts, Toulouse came bearing no gifts but they took all the spoils, this was Christmas but one way, the Toulouse way, Montpellier were the ones donating the gifts in the form of penalty after penalty as they came under immense pressure from Toulouse.
Take one look at the Toulouse team sheet, truffled with Internationals, when you can be privileged enough to leave the best player in the World Dusautoir on the bench, you just know you have strength in depth.
Before everyone had taken their seats in this full house Christmas crowd of 14,719 Toulouse were 7-0 up, a Beauxis chip kick, collected by Medard with virtually no opposition, he had an easy run in under the posts, Beauxis a name that was to send panic through the ranks of Montpellier throughout the evening converted the try.
The play was all Toulouse and every time they ventured into the home side’s 22mts.
they scored either a Beauxis drop goal, (3 altogether), or a penalty and there were plenty of those, the machine they call Toulouse marched forward without hesitation.
A further try was added from scrum half Burgess after sloppy defending and of course the ever present Beauxis added the extras, the first 40 mins. and the visiting no.10 had already 16 pts to his credit..
At half time Montpellier 6 Toulouse 26. Bustos Moyano had 2 penalties to his name for Montpellier.
The second half did not see any great changes Montpellier threw the ball about and Rassie Van Vuuren got himself on the score sheet twice being propelled into the hallowed ground by the rest of the pack, but Beauxis added more penalties and Toulouse were never in any real danger and the score board kept ticking over in their favour.
Louis Picamoles got another try against his old club which no doubt he enjoyed and Audrin crossed over for Montpellier in the dying seconds to give the home side a little respectability, but it was to little to late and the final score Montpellier 25 Toulouse 45.
Montpellier had 2 yellows in the first half and that you just cannot do against the French Champions, its difficult enough playing them on equal terms but to play for 20 mins. in the first half with only 14, just not possible.
Toulouse were far to good for a Montpellier side who under massive pressure throughout the game, yielded far too many mistakes which resulted in far too many penalties and with a Beauxis near perfection (28pts. in total) it was never going to be Montpellier’s evening.
Steve Whittell.
Pitch side interview with Drickus Hancke.
SW. Very tough evening, and a result which we did not want.
DH. No, definitely not the result for us, it’s very difficult to talk after a game like that where we were beaten up front and behind in the backs in fact in every department of the game we were second best, and no way can you play Toulouse for 20 mins with only 14 on the park. We were given a lesson in rugby tonight.
SW. They are a machine and very difficult to contain especially when they are on form like this evening, they have all the assets on their side even the ref helped them tonight. How do you combat a machine like that?
DH. With difficulty, the problem tonight was we watched them play, gave them too much room and space and no way can you do that against any side, and when it’s Toulouse well the result speaks for itself, on the night we were just not good enough.
SW. Happy Birthday for last week and what’s happening at Christmas.
DH. Thanks, yes Christmas and I will be lighting up the Braai (bar be que) and going to have one of my special barbeques loads of meat, a few beers and forget about rugby for 24 hrs, then it’s back down to work and get prepared for the next game on Saturday against Racing Metro.
SW. Cheers Drickus and lets get back on the road to victory next Saturday against Racing.
Interview by Steve Whittell.
