Graou shines as Toulouse sink Montpellier, Pau climb to second in Top 14
Two tries from scrum-half Paul Graou helped champions Toulouse extend their lead at the Top 14 summit to 12 points with an enthralling 45-29 victory over Montpellier on Saturday.
A 15th victory in 20 matches this season kept the French giants on track to qualify directly for the Top 14 semi-finals later this year.
Late converted tries from New Zealand back row Luke Whitelock and France centre Emilien Gailleton helped Pau move up to second as they bounced back from 17-3 down to beat Racing 92 27-17.
Tongan prop Ben Tameifuna's try six minutes from time helped last season's beaten finalists Bordeaux-Begles climb to third with a 21-17 victory at Lyon.
Even with France superstar Antoine Dupont starting on the bench following his Six Nations exploits, Toulouse proved formidable in a top-of-the-table clash which lived up to its billing with 10 tries.
"We're happy with the win but we have to take a look at how we did it -- that was not completely satisfactory," said Toulouse flanker Leo Banos.
"We overplayed a bit in attack and in defence we gave up points too easily."
In an entertaining start, champions Toulouse and Montpellier, who dropped from second to fourth, went blow-for-blow.
Banos threw an outrageous pass behind his back to France's Six Nations hero Thomas Ramos to notch the opening try.
Montpellier responded when fly-half Thomas Vincent ran onto his half-back partner Leo Coly's grubber down the line to dot down.
Right from the restart, Graou darted from the base of a ruck and produced a brilliant sidestep to beat full-back Jon Echegaray and saunter over.
And all that came inside the opening quarter of an hour.
Just after the half hour, Toulouse stretched their lead to 24-8 as an initial break from Ramos ended with Graou again wrong-footing Echegaray to go in under the posts.
Fantastic interplay by the Toulouse three-quarters, started by wing Matthis Lebel, ended with centre Paul Costes adding the next score.
Montpellier managed to stay in touch at the break as prop Baptiste Erdocio burrowed over to reduce the arrears to 31-15.
- Pau leave it late -
The second half started much like the first, with Scotland wing Blair Kinghorn holding off three tacklers to touch down in the corner inside two minutes for Toulouse.
Dupont was among a raft of replacements 10 minutes into the second half as Ramos went off after contributing 16 points.
Montpellier scored next through flanker Marco Tauleigne.
He would later cop a yellow card, as would Toulouse's English back-row Jack Willis, before hooker Lyam Akrab was driven over after a catch and drive as Montpellier closed the gap to nine points.
Almost immediately, Toulouse drove over their own replacement hooker Thomas Lacombre to once again extend their lead.
Tries from Fijian wing Wame Naituvi and France centre Gael Fickou appeared to have set Racing on their way to a crucial victory away to Pau.
But fly-half Axel Desperes scored 14 points as Pau stormed back in the last half hour, with Whitelock scoring the winning try a minute from time, before Gailleton added gloss on the victory.
Racing's defeat left them one place and two points outside the top six play-off spots.
France scrum-half Maxime Lucu scored 11 of Bordeaux's points as a team missing several first-team regulars battled hard for victory in Lyon.
Perpignan eased their automatic relegation fears with a 36-20 victory over Toulon to move 16 points clear of rock-bottom Montauban, who were hammered 49-17 away to Castres.
G.Mancini--MJ
