Heineken Cup round-up:Last year's beaten finalists Northamptonalready look to have lost their chance of getting out of Pool One after an error-strewn performance saw them lose 28-23 to Scarletsat Franklin's Gardens tonight.
The Saints lost out to Ronan O’Gara’s late, late drop goal at Thomond Park in the first round of games but some terrible mistakes from Jim Mallinder’s side were pounced on by the Welsh outfit, who claimed a bonus point when the outstanding Rhys Priestland dotted down for the fourth try.
The Scarlets, who opened their campaign with victory over Castres, had the game wrapped up by half-time with tries from Liam Williams, Aaron Shingler and Matt Gilbert.
Priestland, making his first start since the World Cup, scored the bonus-point try as the Scarlets counter-attacked following a Chris Ashton knock-on.
The Saints staged a late comeback to earn a losing bonus point with tries from George Pisi and Tom Wood, on top of 13 points from Ryan Lamb.
Tim Visser’s try double earned
Edinburgh
a sensational Pool Two success over
Racing Metro
at Murrayfield tonight as they came back from 44-20 to claim a 48-47 win.
The Flying Dutchman, who will qualify to play for Scotland at the end of the season, scored a try after 35 seconds and another four minutes from time as Edinburgh sensationally came from behind to triumph and claim a second win from two games following last weekend’s win at London Irish.
The hosts scored 17 points in the opening 10 minutes but conceded 28 unanswered points and were trailing by 20 with 14 minutes remaining.
But Racing replacement Jone Qovu was sin-binned with 11 minutes to go and Edinburgh scored two converted tries to triumph, with captain Greig Laidlaw kicking the winning conversion.
Edinburgh’s tries came from Visser (two), Netani Talei, Tom Brown, Roddy Grant and Laidlaw, who added six conversions and two penalties in a 23-point haul.
Racing finished with five tries — for Julien Saubade, Juan Imhoff, Henry Chavancy (two) and Jonathan Wisniewski, who kicked 20 points, while Juan Martin Hernandez kicked one conversion but missed a drop-goal attempt with the last play of the game.
In the other game in Pool Two, outhalf Dan Parks kicked 14 points as
Cardiff Blues
made it two from two in with a scrappy 24-18 win over 14-man
London Irish
at Cardiff City Stadium.
First-half tries from hooker Rhys Thomas and scrumhalf Lloyd Williams laid the groundwork for an 18-9 half-time lead for the hosts, by which time the visitors were a man down after centre Steven Shingler saw red for a reckless spear tackle on opposite number Dafydd Hewitt.
Parks’s boot eventually sealed the hosts’ win with two second-half penalties but Irish refused to buckle and bravely kept themselves in the game through the boot of fullback Tom Homer, who kicked all their points to earn what could yet prove to be a valuable losing bonus point.
In Pool Four,
Clermont Auvergne
made up for their defeat to Ulster at Ravenhill as they trounced Italian minnows
Aironi
54-3 at Stade Marcel Michelin.
The star-studded French side ran in eight tries, with Lee Byrne, Gerhard Vosloo and Brock James going over in the first half and Julien Bonnaire, Julien Bardy, Jean-Marcel Buttin, Wesley Fofana, and Julien Malzieu adding second-half scores.
Scrumhalf Morgan Parra converted four of those tries, while outhalf James successfully added the points for the three of the others.
Italian side Aironi, who lost their first match to Leicester, managed only an early Luciano Orquera penalty in reply.
