A new Champions Cup season is only just under way but already the defending champions Bordeaux are having to battle for everything. The French visitors, chasing a third consecutive crown, were forced to weather a furious effort from a revitalised Gloucester in an outstanding contest and ultimately had to settle for a draw to complete a highly eventful visit to England.
Four visiting players, including Louis Bielle-Biarrey, were held up for four hours on arrival by UK Border Control for failing to have a valid electronic travel authorisation (ETA), but stopping their star winger on the field tends to be slightly harder. The French international, in his familiar red scrum cap, darted over for two sharp tries but could not quite prevent the Cherry and Whites from from claiming a share of the spoils.
Gloucester had been given momentary hope by two tries within five minutes by their lively former Harlequins back-rower Will Trenholm, making a serious impact off the bench. The classy Bielle-Biarrey, though, dragged his side back level and either side could have nicked it in the final quarter. If this is a sign of what is to come in the tournament this season, it will be some ride between now and the final in Lyon in May.
Bordeaux will certainly not forget this night in a hurry. In the absence of their injured French outside half Matthieu Jalibert, they deployed their captain Maxime Lucu at No 10 but it was a positional switch in their second row that caused the bigger stir. Ben Tameifuna, the 150-kg prop pressed into service as a lock, may be an immovable object in the front row but on this occasion in the scrums it was the Gloucester pack who were the more irresistible force until Bordeaux cranked up the second-half pressure.
When they are in the mood the reigning champions have the ability to rip any opposition apart and they wasted little time in underlining their pedigree following a minute’s silence in honour of Hyron Andrews, the Lions and former Sale player who tragically passed away in France ahead of his side’s pool game against La Rochelle. The game was just four minutes old when their scrum-half Martin Page-Relo nipped smartly down the blindside for the opening score with Lucu nonchalantly adding the conversion.
This one-off round of fixtures, sandwiched into the busy early season domestic programme, still potentially offered an opportunity to catch them slightly off guard. Gloucester have made a promising start to their own Prem campaign and they looked full of early running on a cool, still evening.
Arthur Clark crashed over to reward some sustained early pressure and there was plenty of interest, too, in Bordeaux’s first lineout throw. Would the massive Tameifuna suddenly soar like a mega-salmon? And, more to the point, would any of his teammates be brave enough to try and hoist him skywards? Unsurprisingly, when the moment came, the big man was used as a decoy having initially stationed himself at scrum-half. Sadly, too, he wasn’t given the chance to show off his dive pass.
Big Ben was also soon to be found sucking in seagulls as Gloucester deliberately sought to raise the tempo. Again the ball was moved swiftly from the base and there was no stopping the Welsh centre Max Llewellyn, one of six Wales-qualified players in the home 23, from close range. The lead did not last long, though, with another big visiting lump, Sipili Falatea, barrelling over at the other end to make it 14-14.
after newsletter promotion
While a raking 55-metre penalty from the composed Lucu finally gave Bordeaux the lead for the first time, Gloucester still kept coming. The tweaked maul rule, making it illegal for opposing players to ‘swim around’ the side has been a popular decision in these parts and only some frantic defence from the visitors managed to halt a concerted home drive. It was only a temporary reprieve.
With Tameifuna again finding his new second row role less than comfortable, the Gloucester scrum rocked forwards again and Barton rewarded his forwards’ hard work with another raucously-celebrated try. The Shed have been waiting for this fired-up, hungry version of ‘Glawster’ to show up consistently for years and, with Barton adding a further penalty, their 24-17 interval advantage was well merited.
With over 60% possession and six clean breaks to one, the stats backed up that impression. There was never much doubt, though, that Bordeaux would raise their level in the second half and within 11 minutes of the restart they had two more tries on the board, the first scored by the winger Pablo Uberti courtesy of a lovely long pass from Bielle-Biarrey and the second from the prolific winger himself. Trenholm’s quickfire double, however, prompted another momentum shift and guaranteed a finish every bit as compelling as the rest of the evening.
