Four-time champions Toulouse cruised past two-time winners Leicester 23-9 in the torrential rain of southwest France on Sunday in a battle of European Cup heavyweights.
The win could prove crucial in Pool 2, which also includes powerful Welsh side Ospreys who had opened their campaign with a bonus point 38-17 win over Treviso on Saturday.
Toby Flood had kicked Leicester 9-6 ahead by the 35th minute with three penalties to a brace from former All Black Luke McAlister to briefly give the English side hope of repeating Harlequins’ shock win at Toulouse last season.
However, the game turned on a fine individual try by highly rated center Gael Fickou just before the interval.
Leicester’s Thomas Waldrom lost the ball at the halfway line and 18-year-old Fickou kicked ahead, outsprinting his pursuers to score what was the only try of the game, much to the delight of the 38,000 crowd.
McAlister missed the conversion, but went on to kick four second-half penalties as Toulouse flexed their muscles.
“With the rain falling heavily, it was a really difficult match,” Toulouse coach Guy Noves said.
“It was tough so I can only congratulate my players for rolling up their sleeves although it was unfortunate that we didn’t score one or two more tries and kill off the opposition,” he said.
Leicester coach Richard Cockerill admitted his side had paid the price for not hammering home their advantage when they were ahead.
“We controlled the match for 38 minutes when we kept up a three-point lead and we wanted to take the match in hand,” he said.
“But we weren’t able to do it for more than the first half and we have to be better than that. We didn’t do it and we were punished for it,” he said.
Earlier on Sunday, Northampton clawed back 15 unanswered points to defeat Glasgow 24-15 in Pool 4 as Sale trumped Cardiff Blues in a 34-33 Pool 6 thriller.
Glasgow roared into a 15-point lead thanks to tries by Josh Strauss and Sean Lamont, Peter Horne nailing a penalty and conversion.
However, Saints’ stand-out Samoan center George Pisi hit back with two tries, one converted by Stephen Myler, to make it 15-12 to the visitors at the break.
Myler then crossed for a try minutes after the break and Russian winger Vasily Artemyev also touched down to ensure a bonus-point victory for Northampton, European champions back in 2000.
“We were under a bit of pressure, but what was pleasing was the way we came back and kept our composure. In the second half, we controlled the game,” Saints coach Jim Mallinder said.
“I think we are in decent shape. When we are on top of our game we are a hard side to beat, and we need to keep at that intensity every single week,” he said.
In Salford, Sale left it late in beating Cardiff Blues, for whom Wales wing Alex Cuthbert scored a hat-trick, all converted by full-back Leigh Halfpenny who also notched up four penalties.
However, that haul was not enough as Sale, whose league form has so far this season been woeful, launched a comeback inspired by a Danny Cipriani try with 25 minutes remaining.
Mark Jennings and Tony Buckley also crossed the whitewash and, allied with 12 points from Nicky MacLeod’s boot and Rob Miller providing a crucial penalty and two conversions at the death, Sale grabbed an unlikely yet vital victory.
“It’s something we’ve been longing for,” said Cipriani, whose Sale team went into the game having lost five matches in succession. “We had to give the fans something to cheer about and we did.”
In Sunday’s late Pool 6 game, Toulon ran in five tries for a bonus-point 37-16 win over fellow French side Montpellier with English full-back Delon Armitage scoring twice.
Pierrick Gunther, Mathieu Bastereaud and South African lock Bakkies Botha also crossed for tries.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite