{"id":347983,"date":"2025-12-14T18:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T18:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347983\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T18:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T18:38:08","slug":"ten-try-harlequins-cruise-to-champions-cup-rout-of-understrength-bayonne-champions-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/347983\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten-try Harlequins cruise to Champions Cup rout of understrength Bayonne | Champions Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christmas is a time for giving and Bayonne presented this game to Harlequins<\/a> by selecting an inexperienced side who realistically stood no chance. Manu Tuilagi and Gareth Anscombe were listed as injured, along with plenty of others, but four frontline players were rested. There was nothing wrong with Bayonne giving Jonah Thompson, a 20-year-old Australian, his professional debut against rugby royalty in south-west London: but the fact he is a flanker, and was pressed into service on the right wing, was arguably pushing it a bit far.<\/p>\n

The Champions Cup<\/a> is supposedly an elite competition and that should be celebrated whenever appropriate. But the current format means too many clubs are selecting weakened sides for matches they regard as unwinnable \u2013 or rather, when they think others are more winnable. It is short-changing fans. Quins scored 10 tries, nine of them converted by Marcus Smith, the player of the match, but it rarely felt as if they were obliged to change up from second gear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can only play what they put out there,\u201d said the Harlequins senior coach, Jason Gilmore. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit like that in the Champions Cup at the moment. Are the travelling teams full strength all the time? Probably not. But you\u2019ve got to make sure you get your five points at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hosts, initially, proved incapable of holding on to their own ball when it counted. There was early pace and tempo, but handling errors too from Luke Northmore and Oscar Beard. Smith finally injected a bit of quality, dabbing a grubber kick for Cadan Murley to score on 22 minutes.<\/p>\n

Tom Spring, Bayonne\u2019s young fly-half, then failed to read a Smith cross-kick, allowing the second-row Kieran Treadwell to gallop over, and Fin Baxter capitalised on more weak defending to score from close range. That was 21-0 \u2013 apparently game over \u2013 unless the visitors could muster a comeback like Glasgow Warriors\u2019 magnificent effort against Toulouse and Antoine Dupont on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Marcus Smith kicked nine conversions in Harlequins\u2019 emphatic victory. Photograph: Cat Goryn\/INPHO\/ShutterstockQuick GuideHarlequins 68-14 Bayonne teams and scorersShow<\/p>\n

Harlequins\u00a0David; Cleaves, Beard (Waghorn 54), Northmore (Benson 63), Murley (capt.), Smith, Porter (Friday 57); Baxter (Wenger 58), Walker (Riley 54), Delgado (Hobson 47), Pagadiz\u00e1bal, Lewies (Treadwell 24), Kenningham, Evans, Carr (Cunningham-South 51).\u00a0Tries\u00a0Murley, Treadwell 2, Baxter, Delgado, Porter 2, M Smith, Riley, Benson.\u00a0Cons\u00a0M Smith 9. Sin-bin Evans 34.<\/p>\n

Bayonne\u00a0Orabe; Thompson, Maqala (Jantjies 66), Mori, Hannoun; Spring (Boyle-Tiatia 57), Tilloles; Calles (Cormenier 51), Martin (Giudicelli 51), Setiano (Fepulea\u2019i 51), Iandolino (Marchesin 75), Paulos, Fischer (capt., Traversier 51), Capilla (Heguy 51), Ariceta.\u00a0Tries\u00a0Paulos, Spring.\u00a0Cons\u00a0Spring 2.\u00a0Sin-bin\u00a0Iandolino 56, Heguy 64.<\/p>\n

Referee\u00a0Andrew Brace<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

When Spring chased a kick over the top and the Argentinian Lucas Paulos burrowed over, Will Evans was shown a yellow card into the bargain. At 21-7 and with Quins a man down, the threat of a contest hung in the air, before the prop Pedro Delgado surged over for his first Harlequins five-pointer. A bonus point secured, to go with the one Quins claimed in losing to Leinster last weekend.<\/p>\n

After the break, when the scrum-half Will Porter darted over in the corner, Smith added a fifth conversion and that was 35-7. Spring\u2019s lively running led to a second Bayonne try when he jinked over on the right having accepted a beautiful one-handed offload by the hooker, Lucas Martin. Porter added his second try before Chandler Cunningham-South, ominously for Bayonne, appeared off the home bench.<\/p>\n

Baptiste Heguy was the second visiting player to be sent to the sin-bin, leaving them with 13 men for a minute or so, and another Quins replacement, Sam Riley, capitalised with two tries inside five minutes.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideChampions Cup roundup: Edinburgh suffer 33-0 defeat at CastresShow\"\"<\/p>\n

Toulon came out on top over Bath in an entertaining nine-try contest and took a 45-34 victory at the Stade Mayol.\u00a0The result means all six teams in Pool Two have a win and a loss to their name after their first two matches but Bath’s bonus point means they top the table with six points, with the other sides on five.
Finn Russell slotted two penalties either side of Brian Alainu’uese’s try which gave Toulon a 7-6 lead.\u00a0Mateo Garcia kicked three points for the hosts following a ruck infringement but Bath went ahead through Ted Hill with their first try of the game before Garcia knocked over his second penalty to make it 13-13.
Toulon went eight points to the good when Juan Ignacio Brex finished off after Kyle Sinckler’s powerful run, that was before Garcia kicked his third penalty of the game – but back came Bath again when Russell’s delayed pass allowed Santi Carreras to cross the whitewash.
Sinckler’s powerful run proved troublesome again in Toulon’s next try as Gael Drean picked a line to race clear and re-establish the French side’s eight point lead but Bath were not going away themselves, Arthur Green dotted down to bring the deficit back to one.
Toulon got their try bonus point through Lewis Ludlam but Max Ojomoh’s short pass let Louie Hennessey cut the gap to four points for Bath before another penalty and Teddy Baubigny’s try finished things off in the French side’s favour.<\/p>\n

Edinburgh were brought back down to earth in the Champions Cup as they fell to a 33-0 defeat at Castres.\u00a0The visitors claimed a stunning win over Toulon on their return to the competition last week but they were well beaten in France this time.<\/p>\n

Christian Ambadiang\u2019s 12th-minute try was the only score of the first half, but the lead extended to 12-0 six minutes into the second period when Loris Zarantonello crossed and Pierre Popelin converted.\u00a0Tyler Ardron was the third Castres player to score a try as they stretched their advantage even further and Edinburgh\u2019s cause was not helped when Piers O\u2019Conor was shown a yellow card for a dangerous tackle.\u00a0Castres took full advantage, Adam Vargas securing the bonus point with the hosts\u2019 fourth try when he crossed in the corner.\u00a0The scoring was complete in the 63rd minute when Popelin sent over his fourth conversion following Vilimoni Botitu\u2019s (pictured) try. PA Media<\/p>\n

This story will be updated<\/p>\n

Photograph: George Tewkesbury\/Shutterstock Editorial<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

Jamie Benson ran in the ninth, Thompson\u2019s profound lack of wing experience exposed again. The Australian should have a bright future and none of this is his fault. Blame the format, blame the coaches, but don\u2019t blame him. The Ireland international Treadwell made it 10 tries but it was long since over by then.<\/p>\n

Asked if fans want full-strength sides competing in the Champions Cup Gilmore said: \u201cI think the players do too. They\u2019re competitive beasts. There\u2019s probably different factors in that, when you\u2019re squishing the competition among Gallagher Prem and Top 14.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had this last week, we rested a few players, but by international guidelines you\u2019ve got to \u2026 it\u2019s hard to get the balance of it all in terms of mixing competitions, but I just look at what the boys want. They want the best every week. Is that possible for clubs? It can be really difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christmas is a time for giving and Bayonne presented this game to Harlequins by selecting an inexperienced side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-347983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}