Ronan O\u2019Gara faces another touchline ban after seeing red for dissent an hour into La Rochelle\u2019s bewildering 13-try 53-33 loss at Pau.<\/p>\n
He had already incurred the public wrath of referee Jeremy Rozier after audibly questioning his decision to send off fly-half Antoine Hastoy after 34 seconds. The referee summoned a furious O\u2019Gara from the sidelines to warn that further dissent would see him sent to the stands.<\/p>\n
Rozier had reached for red after a leaping, unbalanced, Hastoy kicked out at the advancing Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, making contact with the Pau winger\u2019s face, as he took the first high ball of a game of aerial bombardment at Stade du Hameau.<\/p>\n
Moments after O\u2019Gara\u2019s dismissal, Dillyn Leyds scored the Rochelais\u2019 fourth try to bring them briefly to within a score of their hosts. It had been that kind of game. And there was still plenty of drama to come.<\/p>\n
Sebastien Piqueronies\u2019 young side have made aerial bombardment a key tactic. They used it great effect minutes later, to score the game\u2019s opening try.<\/p>\n
Gregoire Arfeuil beat Jack Nowell to a well-weighted Axel Desperes kick. Emilien Gailleton picked up the loose ball, and released Fabien Brau-Boirie to score.<\/p>\n
But La Rochelle weren\u2019t cowed by their early numerical disadvantage. Nowell gave way to Ihaia West, and he sent UJ Seuteni over following phases of hard work from his pack.<\/p>\n
Arfeuil then scored one of his own after gathering another Desperes kick, and engineering a one-two with Reece Hewat, before Jules Favre answered back for the visitors following a break from Leyds.<\/p>\n
Argentinian hooker Julian Montoya scored following a penalty to touch shortly before halftime, and Grandidier-Nkanang extended the hosts\u2019 lead after the restart.<\/p>\n
Another 5m lineout led to France international tighthead Thomas Laclayat\u2019s first try in green following his summer move from Racing 92.<\/p>\n
The visitors\u2019 replacement tighthead Aleksandre Kuntelia scored their third, to keep them in the hunt with half-an-hour to play. Then O\u2019Gara was sent off, Leyds touched down, and Charles Kante Samba was sin-binned for pulling down a fast-moving maul to reduce La Rochelle to 13 for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
Two players up, Beka Gorgadze scored for Pau, and rising star Brau-Boirie got his second, beating the ball into touch for the bonus-point try 10 minutes from time.<\/p>\n
There was still time for Favre to score his second to rip the bonus away again; for the La Rochelle pack to annoy the referee; for Pau’s Dan Robson to be held up over the line; for a Robson chip ahead to bounce cruelly over everyone with the tryline begging, for Kante Samba to return and for La Rochelle lock Thomas Lavault to see yellow. And for replacement hooker Youri Delhommel to get Pau’s try bonus back with the clock in the red.<\/p>\n
Joy at Antoine Dupont\u2019s return to the Toulouse matchday 23 for their 48-24 win over Racing 92 was tempered by regret at the final appearance of centre Pita Ahki, who will join Auckland Blues for the 2026 Super Rugby season.<\/p>\n
Castres backed-up their victory at La Rochelle with an unconvincing 23-7 home win over Perpignan, while Bayonne\u2019s 22-20 home \u2018success\u2019 over Lyon was as gloomy as the conditions in south-west France.<\/p>\n
A disputed refereeing decision decided the result of Stade Francais\u2019 trip to Clermont. The refereeing team decided there was no clear evidence of a knock-on in the lead-up to Lucas Tauzin\u2019s game-deciding try in favour of the hosts at the end of a 36-32 thriller.<\/p>\n
Lenni Nouchi was the star as Montpellier came from behind to beat Bordeaux 28-24 at the Septeo Stadium. And Toulon eased to a 54-28 win over Montauban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronan O\u2019Gara faces another touchline ban after seeing red for dissent an hour into La Rochelle\u2019s bewildering 13-try…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-168491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}