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Clermont crush Harlequins in Champions Cup opener

Chris Robshaw

Harlequins suffered a heavy defeat in their Heineken Champions Cup opener at Clermont Auvergne on Saturday, losing 53-21.

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The excellent Alivereti Raka and Peceli Yato scored two tries apiece in a dominant display from the three-time finalists, who were making their return to the competition after failing to qualify for last season’s tournament.

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Clermont opened up a 22-0 lead inside 25 minutes and kept Quins firmly at arm’s length throughout.

Raka raced clear for Clermont’s opening try after pouncing on a loose pass in the 11th minute, with Morgan Parra – who had earlier opened the scoring from the tee – adding the extras in front of the posts.

Yato then powered over for the first of his double, dragging desperate challenger Marcus Smith behind him, and brushed off Glen Young to break Quins’ defensive line and charge towards the line for his second.

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Tom Lawday reduced the deficit when he touched down 11 minutes from half-time, but Clermont reasserted their authority on the match when Isaia Toeava collected a George Moala offload to cross the whitewash.

A driving maul produced a Quins try through Elia Elia in the 51st minute, before Clermont spread the ball out to the left wing with the help of a well-judged Camille Lopez kick for Raka to cross for his second of the match.

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Lopez was instrumental once again in his side’s sixth try, sending through a chip that was chased down by Moala.

Quins’ final score of the match deserved better than to be on the losing side, with Gabriel Ibitoye embarking on a scintillating run before sending James Lang over.

But Clermont had the final say in a match they controlled from start to finish, Mike Tadjer applying the finish after a driving maul.

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J
JW 53 minutes ago
'They smelt it': Scott Robertson says Italy sensed All Blacks' vulnerability

Even the 20/30 cappers did too I reckon.


IDK, I think Jordan has a limited life span in this side unless he can develop more to his game. Like you go on to mention, I think theyres more important things to worry about than the effectiveness of someone's extra strings, or secondary components to their game.


Bash backs are Fosters thing, and to a large part they've made it work. Theyre now one of the best teams in the world.


They boy's trucked it up a bit against Italy in the redzone, and against France, wasn't that effective without the right players probably.


Try and take a look at it this way. Dissapointed Havili and Blackadder were in the side? Havili despite clearly shown that he can't do what the team needs at 12 was kept on for the RWC. Back goes down and he brings in Blackadder who doesn't play. Refuses to drop Christie when he should and look who starts this season. Beauden Barret not playing well enough to keep his 10 jersey but we gotta keep him in the side. Weve only got one 8, we stuff developing another I'll just play Ardie every game.


This years team wasn't burdened overly with injuries but they were in every position Razor might have wanted to try and development, severely limiting options. I'm not defending Razor as there was also plenty of other opportunity to make up for it and he was a little gunshy, but I'm also not going to overly criticise him because he chose cohesion over a black slate.

How long are we going to keep blaming All Black failings on Ian Foster.

I think more and more people are on board with it being time to try alternatives, but then again, how would they have reacted to a loss against Italy? 😉

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