Hickey lights it up for Bordeaux Begles

Konstantin Mikautadze was sent off and Simon Hickey amassed 27 points as Bordeaux Begles ended Montpellier’s 100 per cent Top 14 record with an emphatic 47-17 rout, while Clermont Auvergne edged out Racing 92 on Saturday.

Montpellier arrived at Stade Chaban-Delmas with four wins out of four, but Raphael Ibanez’s side ran riot to consign them to a first defeat of the season.

Bordeaux made it three home wins out of three in style, opening up a commanding 31-10 half-time advantage after Loann Goujon, Neville Edwards, Jean-Pascal Barraque and Apisai Naqalevu went over.

Timoci Nagusa scored his second try of the match to give the leaders hope early in the second half, but they were a man down for the last 15 minutes after giant lock Mikautadze was shown a red card for a forearm to the face of Matthieu Jalibert.

Former Blues and Auckland fly-half Hickey added another five-pointer for the home side late on, converting every try and also landing four penalties in a magnificent performance.

Defending champions Clermont followed up their drubbing of Brive last weekend by beating Racing 23-21.

Alivereti Raka and Nick Abendanon claimed first-half tries for Franck Azema’s men and Camille Lopez scored 13 points from the tee, with a Teddy Thomas score and a penalty try in vain for the 2016 champions.

La Rochelle moved up to second after a thumping 57-12 drubbing of Oyonnax, while Toulouse kept bottom side Brive waiting for a first win with a 22-19 away success and Pau triumphed 20-14 at Agen.