The previous Munster legend Ronan O’Gara will be hoping to conquer the top choices Leinster in Marseille on Saturday week. La Rochelle’s head of rugby saw his side loss the Champions Cup almost men Racing 92 in the smothering intensity in northern France in the primary round of expert rugby at Stade Bollaert-Delelis in Lens.
It was physical and attritional yet it was not pretty. Absolutely these sides couldn’t match Leinster’s masterful movement to the last 24 hours sooner.
La Rochelle won’t beat the staggering top picks Leinster in the event that they decide to play a high-rhythm game one week from now yet assuming the game is tight they are a counterpart for anybody. O’Gara’s side, beaten a year prior at Twickenham in the last by Toulouse, have a colossal pack and they have taken incredible steps in the previous year.
Nobody has made a larger number of conveys in the opposition this season than their skipper, Grégory Alldritt, whose take a stab at the stroke of half‑time turned the game La Rochelle’s way and the No 8 was exceptional close by the 35-year-old previous All Black Victor Vito in the back column.
Sentimental people will lament that the last won’t be graced by Racing’s Nolann Le Garrec. The scrum-half turned 20 on Saturday yet couldn’t commend a success close by his half-back accomplice Finn Russell, both extraordinary the earlier week against Sale in their quarter-last in Paris.
Le Garrec has been commended as the following Antoine Dupont yet he needed to watch Ihaia West at last kill off the game in the last move of the evening with an attempt that compensated for the New Zealander’s unpredictable spot kicking that might have cost them the game. La Rochelle, however, merited their triumph.
The day had not begun well for Racing with the full-back Max Spring and the prop Trevor Nyakane pulling out with wounds yet the Parisian side got their noses in front in a rough first half when the two sides seemed, by all accounts, to be racked by nerves in this, their most memorable Champions Cup meeting. After Le Garrec had put Racing ahead with an early punishment his side scored the primary attempt. The Racing pack drove advances and Virimi Vakatawa saw his chance with a slick advance and a stretch over the line.
La Rochelle’s pack then, at that point, started to extend its muscles. Hustling persevered through another injury blow when Ibrahim Diallo went low to stop the monster prop Uini Atonio and the flanker left the field shocked and confounded. La Rochelle started to extract the life from the Racing pack and, after a progression of punishments and scrums, Alldritt controlled over with the last move of the primary half to agree with his position to inside two purposes of Racing for whom the final part looked inauspicious.
Dashing changed their first column at the break. La Rochelle before long got an opportunity to start to lead the pack interestingly yet West lightened his third kick of the midday when a direct punishment struck a post. Rather it was Racing who extended their lead when Le Garrec handled a punishment five minutes after the fact.
Hustling, however, put more squeeze on themselves when their prostitute Camille Chat, one of those substitutions, was shown a yellow card for handling a man without the ball. Unexpectedly the entire energy of the game changed.
La Rochelle’s pack thundered advances and the ref, Matthew Carley, granted them a punishment attempt while the Racing No 8 Yoan Tanga was punished for block at the batter. Tanga was shown a yellow card and Racing were diminished to 13 players and an apparently irredeemable assignment of saving the game.
Le Garrec had two chances to reestablish the lead for the 13 men with two punishments. However, they floated wide and La Rochelle detected they were en route to a second progressive last.
