French rugby Updates : Le café du Rugby.

Stone wall red card, and yeah a yellow card nothing more

Very disappointing Toulouse performance, LAR well on top and well worth their win.

On the game last night, it was a weird one. Entirely second string selection for Toulouse so they knew any decent result was unlikely.

They actually did well for the opening 30mins. La Rochelle were absolutely dominating them physically but were fairly poor in attack. Penalty count was 7-2 after 20 mins including Brennan having gone to the bin but scoreline was still only 7-3 after 35mins thanks to an early penalty try.

Toulouse got narrow off a scrum on halfway (was fairly impressed at how the back up Toulouse pack coped fairly well with the LAR scrum) and LAR scored a breakaway try following an incredible kick through from Leyds after 38mins. Then Bollengier (still U20 and looks an incredible talent) scored an interception under the posts after 42mins when Toulouse looked to play out of their half with the clock in the red, bizarrely.

4th try was quick thinking from a penalty by TKB who tapped and slung it wide whilst Toulouse were asleep and Leyds got over in the corner. That was in the 49th minute and the game just died a death after that.

Toulouse with an injury time consolation. They'll take it and move on. Final penalty count was 19-7 in LAR's favour including three yellow cards for Toulouse.

LAR in a little bother at lock and centre. Lavault is gone. They gamed the system a bit with Skelton, I reckon. He copped an arm to the head (yellow for Toulouse) and was down immediately, dazed and needed attention. His second row partner was red carded at the same time. He wasn't removed for a HIA but subbed him 2 mins later tactically. Doesn't have to go into RTTP now and they've a big couple of weeks ahead. First time this season Skelton was subbed off.

Julien Favre went off early with a head knock. Danty suspended currently. That means they may have to move Botia back to centre to partner Seuteni.

Danty gets 2 weeks in addition to 1 already served. Slightly fortunate but probably in line with what we've seen before when there was mitigation.

I've no idea how Racing swung that when Toulon had Jaminet, Ollivon, Villiere and Gros all in the French RWC squad and Serin who was probably going to be included for the 6N (with Dupont unavailable) before his injury.

Had a watch of a couple games

Racing played some very nice rugby v Castres. Nice set piece plays (no doubt benefitting from Lancaster's influence) and a really dominant scrum.

Skelton was unplayable Vs Pau, probably won La Rochelle the game himself for a finish. Back to his wrecking ball best.

Are Provence in ProD2 and chasing promotion?