Six penalties from Irish flyhalf Jonathan Sexton were enough to give champions Leinster an 18-13 victory away at Bath in their European Cup Pool 3 match on Sunday.
Victory saw Leinster — who have lost just two of their past 19 European Cup matches — top the table after three matches and looking forward to the visit of Bath at Lansdowne Road where they have already sold more than 40,000 tickets.
Leinster coach Joe Schmidt welcomed the win, but was far from happy with the number of try-scoring chances his team let slip.
“The frustration was that we couldn’t get the ball over their line. We appeared to have a couple of gilt-edged chances,” Schmidt said. “We want to be a lot more accurate to make sure we finish opportunities that we create, but I am delighted with the result.
“Against a quality team it’s hard to create opportunities and the last thing you want to do is butcher them like we did today. We almost suffocated ourselves at times,” Schmidt said.
SECOND PLACE
Glasgow are in second, three points behind the Irish side after they edged a second-string Montpellier side 20-15 in an ill-tempered affair that saw three players sin-binned.
Four penalties from Glasgow’s highly thought of 20-year-old flyhalf Duncan Weir provided the hosts with the backbone of their victory.
CLERMONT VS LEICESTER
The day’s other match was another bad-tempered affair between French giants Clermont and two-time champions Leicester, with the English side going down to a 30-12 hammering.
French 23-year-old center Wesley Fofana — tipped to make a breakthrough into the national side — scored a brace of tries.
They had caught the hosts cold early on with a try by Ben Youngs, but the game was already going away from them when two of their players, fiery English international center Manu Tuilagi — only making his return after fracturing a cheekbone — and prop George Chuter were yellow-carded in the 50th minute.
The foul mood lasted to the end as France backrow star Julien Bonnaire was yellow-carded by Irish referee Alain Rolland for a fistfight with Youngs.
Bath took an early lead against Leinster when Olly Barkley broke the deadlock with a crisply struck penalty to break Jonathan Callard’s European Cup points record for the English club and added another to make it 6-0.
Sexton — man of the match in last season’s come-from-behind final win over Northampton — missed his first attempt at goal, but converted one in stoppage-time of the first half.
Leinster came out with a bang in the second half and Sean O’Brien went on a rampaging run deep inside the 22m line, breaking several tackles before being stopped just short, but while the Irish side failed to come away with a try, Sexton was inch perfect with a penalty to draw them level.
However, the visitors’ exhilarating attacking play was not matched by their finishing as shortly afterward a superb kick and collect by Isa Nacewa set them up brilliantly, but O’Brien somehow fouled things up when he had a three to one overlap.
TAKING THE LEAD
Sexton, though, made no such mistake to finally give them the lead in the 55th minute with another penalty and landed another on the hour mark after a scintillating break by Nacewa had set it up, before Bath hit back in style.
Leinster turned the ball over and the hosts took full advantage as they set up Matt Banahan for his 50th try for the club — Barkley converted to put them 13-12 ahead.
Sexton, though, gave Leinster the advantage once again with eight minutes remaining after an infringement by Francois Louw, who had been instrumental in forcing the Leinster turnover which led to the try, and the latter muddied his copybook further two minutes later when he was sin-binned.
Sexton added a penalty on the final whistle to round off a satisfying day’s work.
OUT AGAINST INDONESIA: Taiwan reached the semi-finals at the tournament for the first time by defeating Denmark, with Chou Tien-chen beating Viktor Axelsen Taiwan yesterday crashed out of the Thomas Cup team competition in Chengdu, China, but achieved their best result at the top-tier badminton event by reaching the semi-finals. Indonesia were too good in the semis, winning 3-0 to advance to today’s final against China, who eliminated Malaysia 3-1. In the opening singles of the men’s team clash at the Hi-Tech Zone Sports Center Gymnasium 2, Anthony Ginting defeated Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen 21-18, 21-19 in 51 minutes, which put a huge hole in Taiwan’s aspirations to perhaps even make the final. In the men’s doubles, Fajar Alfian and Muhammad Ardianto downed Lee Yang and Wang
NO DOUBT: Spurs star Wembanyama was unanimously selected as NBA Rookie of the Year, winning all 99 votes to become the first Frenchman to capture the honor The Minnesota Timberwolves on Monday night produced a dominant defensive display to seize a commanding 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven playoff series against the Denver Nuggets with a 106-80 road victory. The third-seeded Timberwolves harassed Denver relentlessly to claim a second straight win over the NBA champions as the series heads back to Minneapolis for Game 3 on Friday. Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards scored 27 points apiece, but the star of the show was Minnesota’s suffocating defensive effort, which knocked Denver out of their stride almost from the tip-off. The Timberwolves finished with 11 steals and 12 blocks, in sharp contrast to
Top-ranked Iga Swiatek on Saturday came through “the most intense and crazy final” she has ever contested to avenge her loss to Aryna Sabalenka in last year’s Madrid Open final with a grueling three hour, 11 minute victory in the Spanish capital. Coming back from 1-3 down in the decider and saving three match points in total, Swiatek claimed a 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (9/7) victory to secure the Madrid Open trophy for the first time. “Well, who is going to say now that women’s tennis is boring, right?” Swiatek said. Swiatek, who picked up the 20th title of her career, and ninth at
One of Malaysia’s top soccer clubs has pulled out of today’s season-opening Charity Shield after a spate of assaults, including an acid attack, on players in the country. It leaves the kickoff of Malaysia’s season this weekend under a cloud following the unprecedented acts of violence against players, which have left the country shocked and angry. Authorities said they have imposed tighter security, but Selangor said that they would not play in the showpiece curtain-raiser against Malaysian Super League champions Johor Darul Ta’zim (JDT) citing “a series of criminal incidents and recent threats.” Selangor and Malaysia winger Faisal Halim is in intensive care