O'Gara's La Rochelle renaissance continues with gritty road win in Bordeaux

Irish Examiner

26-04-2025

Wins, it turns out, are like buses. Ronan O'Gara's La Rochelle waited 105 days for one. A second arrived a week afterwards, this one a remarkable, hard-way 21-10 victory over Bordeaux at a sold-out Stade Chaban Delmas on Saturday night.
It was a confidence smack of a result to the home side ahead of next weekend's Champions Cup semi-final against Toulouse up the road at the Matmut Atlantique. Especially after events in the Pink City a few hours earlier.
In the week, La Rochelle's veteran tighthead Uini Atonio had insisted the squad still harboured top six ambitions. 'There are five matches left,' he told journalists. 'If we win all five, I think we'll qualify.' It seemed far-fetched. But the Rochelais came out like they meant it.
An early 100m scare apart – when Dillyn Leyds just beat Damien Penaud to a bouncing ball in the visitors' in-goal area following Yoram Moefana's break from under his own posts – they dominated the early exchanges.
Old hand Jack Nowell won a one-on-one with young gun Louis Bielle-Biarrey to score the game's opening try after 14 minutes. He won the upper hand again 10 minutes later, when he beat the Bordeaux flyer to a hack ahead from Cyril Cazeaux – conceding a scrum when a try seemed increasingly likely.
That woke Bordeaux from their Champions Cup semi-final daydreams. They spent the rest of the half pounding away at La Rochelle's defence, repeatedly getting close, but never quite touching down. In rapid succession before the break, Reda Wardi was sinbinned, Jonny Gray was held up over the line, and Maxime Lucu lost a photo-finish race with Jules Favre to ground the ball. Crucially, the visitors' line creaked and bent, but held.
Bordeaux ramped up the pressure again early in the second half. But then Jefferson Poirot was sinbinned for a neck roll on Will Skelton. Temporary sideline exile was probably safest for him. Two minutes later, replacement backrow Paul Boudehent intercepted a lazy Lucu pass from a ruck to score La Rochelle's second.
And Levani Botia came up with the ball from a 5m maul to extend their lead in the 54th minute. Replacement prop Ugo Boniface cut the lead on the hour – after it seemed Nowell had again done just about enough against Bielle-Biarrey.
This had strong hints of the direct La Rochelle of old. Suffocating Bordeaux's vaunted attack of space in defence, and ploughing straight up the guts in attack. And though Bordeaux hammered away for the rest of the match, they failed to break through.
One win down. Four to go. La Rochelle are seventh, level on points with Clermont in sixth, the last of the play-off places. Suddenly far-fetched doesn't seem to be the correct adjective.
Earlier, the Top 14's 'Fan Days' Weekend kicked off at a packed Stadium Toulouse, where teenage scrum-half Simon Daroque scored one of the reigning Top 14 champions' seven tries as they ran through their repertoire en route to a 52-6 rout of a rotated Castres.
But they didn't have everything their own way. Blair Kinghorn is a serious doubt for next weekend's European last-four meeting with Bordeaux at Matmut Atlantique after suffering suspected knee ligament damage.
Lyon, in sixth at the start of the weekend, could not take advantage of Castres' larger-than-expected defeat, as they came off second-best in a nine-try 39-31 thriller against Clermont at Stade Marcel Michelin. Veteran Ben Urdapilleta – who will retire at the end of the season – scored the decisive try four minutes from time, as the hosts leapfrogged their opponents in the standings.
Fourth-placed Bayonne did benefit from Toulouse's earlier win, opening up a five-point gap over fifth-placed Castres courtesy of a 27-22 win over Pau, in a match moved across the Spanish border to Estadio Anoeta. Manu Tuilagi broke his Top 14 try duck in his 18th outing since joining the Basque side last summer, while 21-year-old fly-half Axel Desperes kicked a tricky bonus point–winning penalty after the hooter, moments after missing a similarly difficult shot at goal.
Stuart Hogg was helped off the pitch with a suspected achilles injury as Montpellier held on to beat Perpignan 19-13 at the GGL Stadium. A single point now separates Clermont, in sixth, and Montpellier in eighth place.
The most important result of the day, though, the one that sent shockwaves through the lower reaches of the table, saw Vannes keep their survival hopes very much alive with a bonus-point 29-19 win – their first try-scoring bonus of the season – over an out-of-sorts Toulon at Stade de la Rabine. Italy international Stephen Varney's double was the difference-maker.
Toulon, too, saw Melvyn Jaminet stretchered off the pitch following a collision with one of his own team-mates in the second half.
That result leaves Vannes just one point behind 13th-placed Perpignan and Stade Francais in 12th. The Parisians cross the river into Hauts-de-Seine on Sunday to face 11th-placed Racing 92 at La Defense Arena in a match that could well have season-defining possibilities for both sides.