Yachvili: We beat a great side

SCRUM-HALF Dimitri Yachvili may have taken a pop at Munster for not moving on after their first Heineken Cup success in 2006, but the Biarritz match-winner was also gracious enough to pay them tribute after yesterday’s game.

“We are delighted to have beaten what I would regard as a great team,” he said. “We respect this particular team a lot and that is why we felt we had to give so much to this game; we didn’t play well in the French Championship this season and we wanted to show to everyone that we are a good side.

“I believe we did that against a very good Munster side today,” said Yachvili after his six penalty salvo put Biarritz on the road to Paris.

In relation to Munster, he said: “Things are different from 2006; their team didn’t change as much as ours, but of course we did think of it and it was on our minds.

“The half-time break was important – we talked a lot and agreed we had tried to play too much (without quality possession). Munster defended very aggressively, so we had to play differently to be efficient. Today was very good from that point of view. We attacked their line out, their scrum and we did that in the knowledge that if we could win the fight with the forwards we would win the match.

“We knew we had to be more aggressive than Munster. In the first half it was 50-50 but we certainly got the better of it in the second-half; that was the difference.”

Having failed to make the play-off stages of the French Top 14 championship, the Basque outfit are depending on the outcome of the Heineken Cup final against old rivals Toulouse for silverware and, in this part of the world, right now it’s the only silverware that counts.

It’s going to be an interesting few weeks with Biarritz bereft of fixtures before the big game in Paris. Yet, former English international Iain Balshaw is looking forward to the opportunity to spoil everything for favourites Toulouse.

“We went to Toulouse this season and got a seeing to; we gave them a seeing to here in Biarritz, so it will be very interesting to see what happens in middle ground in Paris.”

However, Balshaw believes all is not lost for the Irish outfit.

“It wasn’t easy, certainly wasn’t easy; I suppose we deserved to win, I felt we did and I don’t think we would have much argument on that. Munster thrive on opposition errors and we tried to play too much in the first-half to give them opportunities to hurt us. They did that with the try; you can’t do that against world class players with a habit of stealing the ball at the breakdown and then turning defence into attack.

“Something similar happened in the quarter-final against the Ospreys but this time we turned the tables and put the opposition under pressure, forced them to make the mistakes, in the second half. Thankfully, it paid off for us. We did to them in the second half what they did to us in the first spell and that was the difference, really.

“Looking back on the game I genuinely believe we played most of the good rugby but they’re a class team and they had spells when they really put us under pressure; they capitalised on our mistake in midfield and scored the only try which, on another day, could have been crucial. Then you’ve got a kicker like O’Gara, who is probably the best open field kicker in the world, and you have to make sure you don’t make errors because he will crucify them. Thankfully, our second-half display was much better than our first.”