Your cart

Who’s hot and who’s not!

It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons over the past week.

THEY’RE ON FIRE!

Toulon: A statement sent to Limerick that Toulon are raring to go ahead of this week’s Champions Cup quarter-final. They outplayed a poor Clermont side to win 49-0, running in seven tries that included one from Chris Ashton as he equals the record set by Napolioni Nalaga in 2008/09 of 21. Munster will have a job knocking out Toulon in this kind of form as they looked rampant at the Stade Felix Mayol on Sunday.

Glasgow: Speaking of impressive, the Warriors racked up 19 more points than Toulon in their 68-7 hammering of Zebre on Friday. 10 tries were carded in all as the returning DTH van der Merwe and Ruaridh Jackson picked up a brace apiece, with fly-half Adam Hastings earning special praise from head coach Dave Rennie. Glasgow are flying at the top of their PRO14 Conference and look very much title contenders.

Sale: When Sale have been on song at home this season, few teams can live with them. Faf de Klerk at the base adding tempo and clinical wings Denny Solomona and Marland Yarde out wide always keeps opposition teams on their toes and Worcester were given a harsh lesson on Saturday, going down 58-25. That bonus-point win lifts Sale into seventh position, six points off the top four. The race is very much on.

Video credit: BT Sport

Tyler Ardron: First Super Rugby start for Ardron and it was some debut from the Canadian. He finished the game against the Sunwolves with 124 metres and looked right at home in his try-scoring performance alongside Brodie Retallick. Damian McKenzie also shone with 26 points.

Mathew Tait: The evergreen Tait was outstanding for Leicester on Sunday and effectively won the game for his side when he raced back to cover Wasps speedster Dan Robson and bundle him into touch. Robson is one of the quickest around but Tait showed he’s still got the pace required for top flight rugby and was excellent in all areas after coming on for Manu Tuilagi, being named Leicester’s man-of-the-match.

Video credit: BT Sport

Ospreys: Dan Evans and Justin Tipuric stood out in the Welsh region’s 32-18 win over an albeit weakened Leinster side. But take nothing away from the performance of this duo with Tipuric in particular his usual tireless self while showing all of his skills. What a player.

COLD AS ICE!

Lions: After struggling to a 40-38 home win over the Sunwolves last week, many expected a response from the Lions in Buenos Aires against the Jaguares. It wasn’t forthcoming as they slumped to a 49-35 defeat, being guilty of missing too many tackles as they once again leaked plenty of points. That was their second loss so far this season and only the Sunwolves have conceded more points in 2018.

Clermont: While we have praised Toulon, there had to be a spot for Clermont in this piece. That just wasn’t good enough and they’ll hope their game improves drastically against Racing 92 in this week’s Champions Cup quarter-final. Despite having plenty of first-team players in their side, Clermont just weren’t at the races on Sunday as they were nilled by a side who weren’t in the best of form going into this.

Stade Français: A seventh loss in their last eight Top 14 games leaves Stade Français hovering dangerously above the bottom two spots. Add in Brive winning over the weekend and suddenly Stade are just two points off the relegation places. Those two face each other on April 28 in Paris in what is already looking like a massive game in the context of both sides’ seasons. Stade must stop the rot though before then.

Super Rugby match officials: There were some strange decisions made by the officials in Round Six of the tournament. Japanese referee Shuhei Kubo officiated the Rebels-Sharks clash at AAMI Park in Melbourne on Friday and let’s just say things didn’t exactly go to plan. With 79 minutes and thirty seconds gone, Kubo blew his whistle for full-time only to realise his mistake, reverse his call and for play to resume. Elsewhere, South Africa’s Marius van der Westhuizen and the rest of his officiating team are getting plenty of flak for doing nothing about a no-arms tackle from the Reds’ Taniela Tupou on Craig Barry of the Stormers at Newlands in Cape Town.

London Stadium snorefest: A game that unfortunately didn’t live up to the hype or venue. Saracens won’t worry too much about their showing but as a contest both they and Harlequins failed to keep the fans at London Stadium interested. Over 57,000 supporters had come out to see the contest but it lacked any real tempo bar some flashes of quality. Not a game to build the Premiership rugby audience which is a shame.

The post Who’s hot and who’s not! appeared first on Planet Rugby.

← Back to Planetrugby.com