Challenge Cup Pool 2 Round 1 review

Pool 2

Cardiff Blues 29 – 18 Lyon

2010 champions Cardiff got their campaign off to a winning start, with George Earle scoring their 100th Challenge Cup try.  Tomos Williams got their second as Cardiff went in 14 – 0 up at the break.

The two sides exchanged tries in the second half, Macauley Cook and Rey Lee-Lo ensured Cardiff got a bonus point, while Virgile Bruni e, Pierr-Lois Barassi, and Jone Tuva got Lyon on the board.  

Both sides had players sent to the bin, Lyon went down to 13 in the space of two second-half minutes, Timilai Rokoduru and Etienne Oosthuizen were sent to the bin for the away side, while Kristian Dacey saw yellow for Cardiff..  

Sale Sharks 20 – 20 Toulouse

The big fish in a small pond Toulouse needed a late penalty to avoid defeat in their opening Challenge Cup game.

Toulouse lead 14 – 3 before half time with tries from Kunabuli and Bézy, but Solomona would get one back for Sale to make it a 4-point game.  Bryn Evans got a second for Sale to put them ahead.  Bézy and De Klerk exchanged penalty with Sale ahead going into the last 10 minutes in front.  Sale had won their last 6 pool matches against Top 14 teams, but Bézy would kick a penalty with 7 minutes to go to ensure Toulouse took 2 points from only their 2nd Challenge Cup game.  

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Ciarán Duffy (@TheVoiceDepth) is a Leinster supporter and self-proclaimed ‘big cheese’ of Post To Post (@PostToPostSport).   He’ll write about anything rugby under the condition he gets to take it too seriously.

*****

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