Harlequins suffered a heavy defeat in their Champions Cup opener at Clermont Auvergne, losing 53-21.
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.
Clermont opened up a 22-0 lead inside 25 minutes. Raka raced clear after pouncing on a loose pass, with Morgan Parra, who had earlier opened the scoring from the tee, adding the extras.
Yato then powered over for the first of his double, dragging the desperately challenging Marcus Smith behind him.
Tom Lawday reduced the deficit when he touched down 11 minutes from half-time but Clermont reasserted their authority when Isaia Toeava collected a George Moala offload to score.
A driving maul produced a Quins try through Elia Elia 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.
Lopez was instrumental once again in his side’s sixth try, sending through a chip that was chased down by Moala.
Quins’ final score deserved better than to be on the losing side, with Gabriel Ibitoye embarking on a scintillating run before sending James Lang over.
But even then Clermont had the final say in a match they controlled from start to finish, Mike Tadjer applying the finish after a driving maul.
Dave Rennie admitted Glasgow almost shot themselves in the foot after the coach saw his side cling on for a 13-7 home victory against Sale. Glasgow raced into a 13-0 interval lead with to a try by DTH van der Merwe and eight points from Adam Hastings’ boot but they failed to add to their lead during the second half and nerves were jangling when Coenie Oosthuizen crossed for the Sharks.
Victory almost slipped away when the Warriors handed possession back to their English rivals with only a second left on the clock but the home crowd at Scotstoun could breathe a huge sigh of relief as Matt Postlethwaite’s knock-on eventually allowed Glasgow to see out victory.
Rennie said: “I thought in the first half we were really good, maybe even better than the 13-0 scoreline. We applied a lot of pressure but the second half was disappointing.
“We talked a lot about controlling territory, forcing them to play from deeper, but we didn’t do that well enough. I just thought we overplayed down our end of the field. When you get into these arm wrestles you need to put teams away and we didn’t. It was an uncomfortable final 10 or 15 minutes. But our lineout was excellent and our defence lineout was excellent. Likewise with the scrum. The big men put in a shift and that got us home in the end.”
Sale barely laid a glove on Glasgow during the first period but it was a different story after the break and Sale’s director of rugby, Steve Diamond, was disappointed to take only a losing bonus point.
“At one stage at 13-0 I thought we were about to fall off the edge of a cliff but we didn’t and instead we managed to salvage it and make it competitive again,” said Diamond, who was without the World Cup players Faf de Klerk, Lood de Jager, Tom Curry and Mark Wilson.
“We’ll know where we are in the competition next week after La Rochelle at home. The World Cup lads will be back and, while I’m not suggesting they are the cavalry, one or three of them do make a difference. So then we’ll see where we go. I think the double header against Exeter will be the deciding factor for us.”
Garry Ringrose, returning from Irish duty in Japan, helped himself to three tries in Leinster’s five-try 33-19 win over Benetton Treviso at the Royal Dublin Showground. The centre touched down twice inside the first 14 minutes, sandwiching a Dean Budd effort. Ronan Kelleher marked his European debut with a try on the half-hour mark as last season’s runners-up opened up a 19-7 interval lead.
A crowd of 15,080 watched Leinster’s captain, Jonathan Sexton, convert his own bonus-point try but Hame Faiva hit back to keep the pressure on. The man of the match, Ringrose, cut inside a tired 68th-minute tackle to complete his first career hat-trick before Luca Sperandio claimed a late consolation try for the Italians.
Leicester started their first Challenge Cup campaign with a 41-20 win over Pau in which the Wales wing Jonah Holmes scored four tries. George Ford was back in action at fly-half for the Tigers just a fortnight after his appearance in the World Cup final.