In a hugely entertaining Champions Cup clash played at the Stade Marcel Michelin, Clermont came away with a 49-33 defeat of fellow French Rivals, Bordeaux.
The start of the game saw Bordeaux start out strong as crosses for tries were made Jean-Marcel Buttin and Jayden Spence. At each occasion, was Ian Madigan kicking in the extra points.
However, there was a limit to the damage for the Top 14 leaders as the boot of Morgan Parra helped him successfully finish off three penalties.
Minutes later, Clermont’s Noa Nakaitaci scored while an addition of the extras was made by Parra, thus handing the lead to the hosts before tries were run in by both Alexander Lapandry and Wesley Fofana.
However, Buttin posted his second try, thus giving Bordeaux a bonus of their own, before he went on to set up Met Talebula, while a late consolation was scored by Gauthier Doubrere.
On the other hand, the head coach of Leinster, Leo Cullen had bemoaned the concession of cheap tries after his side had lost in the Europeans Champions Cup, at the Altrad Stadium, losing 22-16 to Montpellier.
“It was a strange game, really strange. Those conditions were difficult and it led to it being quite a scrappy game in the first half in particular,” Cullen said.
“You have to be able to deal with things like that if you want to progress in this tournament.”
Leinster’s errors, due to the rain-soaked conditions in which they had played in, was responsible for two out of three tries by Montpellier in the game. Centre for Montpellier, Vincent Martin had turned a Cian Healy knock-on into an opportunist score. The same was done by Nemani Nadolo after he intercepted a pass by Jamie Heaslip.
Montpellier’s 14-3 lead at half time had come through when Nadolo bulldozed his way past Rob Kearney.