Amlin SF: Stade Francais vs Clermont Fri 7:45pm; HEC SF: Northampton vs USAP Sun 4pm

thomond2006

Stade Français Paris:
15 Hugo Southwell, 14 Julien Arias, 13 Mathieu Bastareaud, 12 Gonzalo Tiesi, 11 Guillaume Bousses, 10 Lionel Beauxis, 9 Julien Dupuy,
8 Sergio Parisse, 7 Antoine Burban, 6 James Haskell, 5 Pascal Pape, 4 Tom Palmer, 3 David Attoub, 2 Laurent Sempere, 1 Rodrigo Roncero.

Replacements: 16 Remi Bonfils, 17 Rabah Slimani, 18 Damien Weber, 19 Arnaud Marchois, 20 Pierre Rabadan, 21 Juan Leguizamon, 22 Noel Oelschig, 23 Ollie Phillips.

ASM Clermont Auvergne:
15 Tusiata Pisi, 14 Wesley Fofana, 13 Aurélien Rougerie, 12 Marius Joubert, 11 Kini Murimurivalu, 10 Brent Russell, 9 Morgan Parra,
8 Elvis Vermeulen, 7 Julien Bardy, 6 Jamie Cudmore, 5 Thibaut Privat, 4 Julien Pierre, 3 Davit Zirakashvili, 2 Willie Wepener, 1 Vincent Debaty,

Replacements: 16 Mario Ledesma, 17 Lionel Faure, 18 Martin Scelzo, 19 Alexandre Audebert, 20 Sione Lauaki, 21 Kevin Senio, 22 Gonzalo Canale, 23 Anthony Floch,

I fancy the home side, they can only qualify for the HEC if they win the Amlin so they'll go full out in this. Plus their Top14 season is over.

GerM

Either Clermont are experiencing a major injury crisis or they do not give a fiddlers about the Amlin Cup! 4 players in their starting 15 who started against Leinster in Clermont. Obviously putting all their resources into the T14. Stade to win. This is their only hope of getting into the HEC for next season.

jolley123

looks like no one's at the game.

P_1

Pretty poor crowd alright

GerM

Shocking crowd. Looks like Clermont are the only people in France who don't care too much about this cup. Hopefully it will be a cracker though. Pressure off and both teams can play a bit.

Third_Echelon

jolley123 wrote: »

looks like no one's at the game.

yeah bit of a joke really...

GerM

Screw the crowd....that try was worth tuning in alone!

Think this could be a bit of a tryfest...
Both teams looking to throw the ball around Barbarians style

Third_Echelon

Deleted User wrote: »

Think this could be a bit of a tryfest...

yeah... opening up now. 10-10 after 24 mins!

Good to see Alan Lewis running the sideline there. Hope he gets a game in Ireland before the end of the season.

Kaka10

Terrible crowd but then again the french can be snobby and I doubt many french fans of a big club like Clermont believe Amlin games to be anything more than meaningliess friendlies. It was hard enough to get the french teams to take the HC seriously.

Third_Echelon

Deleted User wrote: »

Good to see Alan Lewis running the sideline there. Hope he gets a game in Ireland before the end of the season.

yeah pity he is retiring. I think as he was overlooked for the world cup he had enough...

Serious strength in that tackle on Rougerie!

thomond2006

Some tackle on Rougerie by Tiesi. Great leg strength to drive him back.

Beauxis kicks a penalty: 13-10.

thomond2006

16-10, Beauxis penalty.

thomond2006

now 19-10

ongarite

Thats a shocking bad tackle.
Shoulder charge with no arms at all.

thomond2006

Aye, dirt from Roncero.

19-10 HT

GerM

If Clermont can score first and then get their bench on, they've a great chance of turning this around.

ongarite

WHAT A TRY!!!

Super try, unreal pace

His hands on the ground there were incredible too

GerM

That was unreal. I don't think I've seen an outhalf ever move that quickly.

thomond2006

Russell makes up for throwing the worst intercepted pass ever with a sensational individual try.

Converted: 19-20

thomond2006

The Clermont fullback Pisi is a serious runner.

puke. Deja Vu

ongarite

Russell with another cock-up.

He will be some player though with more game time. Great pace and step.
Join Leinster please!!

Third_Echelon

3rd choice fly-half for a reason it seems..... same stupid error twice costing 2 trys!

When your first "no look" pass goes amiss, why do you try another one under pressure?

This is what happens when you throw players in at the deep end. Flashes of brilliance, but flashes of madness too.

GerM

ongarite wrote: »

He will be some player though with more game time. Great pace and step.Join Leinster please!!

He's 30 so game time isn't the problem. He's just not that good. Electric with ball in hand and running but headless and defensively non-existent. His cock ups have single handedly cost his side this game by the looks of it.

sock puppet

ongarite wrote: »

Russell with another cock-up.

He will be some player though with more game time. Great pace and step.
Join Leinster please!!

God no. At his best he wasn't good enough. Now he's even worse it seems.

ongarite

Bad penalty miss for Clermont. Looks to be game over now unless they get a quick quick try.

Edit:
They've done it. Try for Clermont.
F*ck was that a conversion or not!!

Lazy lazy defence.

Scummore scores but doesn't give Parra the easy kick. What an idiot

Get ready for the big finish!

ongarite

Stade win!

Munster or Harlequins will destroy them in the final..

Bizzare finish...

could have
"Cudmore with 4 more IQ points and Parra nails the conversion, they get a chance to go for the Drop Goal and win"

thomond2006

Good result for Munster/Quins. I'd fear a full strength Clermont.

GerM

Disappointing for the neutral. Munster or even Quins will beat Stade; Munster will cruise against them. Clermont have nobody but themselves to blame. Put out a team of back up players and got what they deserved. Even if it was the Amlin, it was still a semi final of a European contest so I'm happy to see them go out for not treating it with sufficient respect.

phog

Diodn't see all the match but both teams seemed to be off their best. I was shouting for Clermont because I feel they deserve as shot at silverware but I think Stade could be easier beat in a final than Clermont, hopefully, Munster will have more than a passing interest in that final.

washman3

GerM wrote: »

Either Clermont are experiencing a major injury crisis or they do not give a fiddlers about the Amlin Cup! 4 players in their starting 15 who started against Leinster in Clermont. Obviously putting all their resources into the T14. Stade to win. This is their only hope of getting into the HEC for next season.

yes, quite true indeed, they actually dont give a fiddlers about the HEC either,sent a 2nd/3rd string to munster a few years ago when even a losing bonus point would have given them a 1/4 final spot. with a full team they are possibly the best team in europe. T14 is definately their only priority and nothing else.

thomond2006

From Planet Rugby:

Northampton:
15 Ben Foden, 14 Chris Ashton, 13 Jon Clarke, 12 James Downey, 11 Paul Diggin, 10 Stephen Myler, 9 Lee Dickson,
8 Roger Wilson, 7 Phil Dowson, 6 Calum Clark, 5 Christian Day, 4 Courtney Lawes, 3 Brian Mujati, 2 Dylan Hartley (capt), 1 Soane Tonga'uiha.

Replacements: 16 Brett Sharman, 17 Alex Waller, 18 Tom Mercey, 19 Mark Sorenson, 20 Mark Easter, 21 Stuart Commins, 22 Shane Geraghty, 23 Joe Ansbro.

Perpignan:
15 Jérôme Porical, 14 Adrien Plante, 13 David Marty, 12 Gavin Hume, 11 Julien Candelon, 10 Nicolas Laharrague, 9 David Mele,
8 Damien Chouly, 7 Bertrand Guiry, 6 Grégory Le Corvec, 5 Robins Tchale Watchou, 4 Rimas Alvarez Kairelis, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Guilhem Guirado, 1 Perry Freshwater

Replacements: 16 Charles Geli, 17 Kisi Pulu, 18 Jérôme Schuster, 19 Henry Tuilagi, 20 Kevin Boulogne, 21 Manny Edmonds, 22 Joffrey Michel, 23 Guillaume Vilaceca.

Date: Sunday, May 1
Kick-off: 15:00
Venue: stadium:mk
Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Alain Rolland (Ireland). Simon McDowell (Ireland)
Television match official: Tony Redmond (Ireland)
Timekeeper: Brian Abrahams (England)

IMO Northampton should take this.

Edit: Oops I said 4pm in the thread title (thinking in French time!).

irishbucsfan

I wont be able to watch the match unfortunately, but itll be fascinating to see who comes out top in the pack. I'd imagine Perpignan will do it.

Tuilagi on the bench is interesting!

GerM

Will be heavily supporting Perpignan in this one. Took them each way to win the tournament in January so if they win today I'm in the black. More importantly, I'm not sure if they'll take massive support to Cardiff which could result in some ticket returns and will certainly make the public allocation tickets easier to come by when people who had hoped their team get there are selling them on.

washman3

Diodn't see all the match but both teams seemed to be off their best. I was shouting for Clermont because I feel they deserve as shot at silverware but I think Stade could be easier beat in a final than Clermont, hopefully, Munster will have more than a passing interest in that final.[/QUOTE]


forgot that Munster actually WIN a semi-final before playing Clermont/Stad. bet Conor O' Shea was delighted to hear comments like this.