Relief for Galthie as Montpellier win

The pressure eased slightly on coach Fabien Galthie as Montpellier ended a run of seven successive defeats with a thrilling 23-20 victory over Toulouse in their Top 14 clash on Saturday.

A penalty with under two minutes remaining by Teddy Iribaren sealed victory for the hosts and gave them their first win since October 11.

For Toulouse, who had their own blip earlier in the season with five successive defeats, it was only their second loss in the last 10 matches.

Galthie was delighted, though he admitted the performance left a lot to be desired.

“This is a huge win and an immense relief,” said the 45-year-old former France captain. “You can’t put a price on this win. The injury to Francois (Trinh-Duc, their fly-half who broke his leg in the last game they won back in October) really hurt us badly. We have had a chain of events subsequently that has been complicated and traumatising.”

Toulon went back to the top of the table with a 30-6 win over Lyon, shrugging off a host of injury absentees to overcome a poor start which had seen them trail 6-3 at the break.

New Zealand flanker Chris Masoe grabbed two tries for the European champions, his second score coming in the last minute, which secured a bonus point. Australian winger Drew Mitchell also scored a try.

Clermont moved back into second place with a 19-10 win over Castres which left the 2013 champions rooted to the foot of the table. Former All Blacks winger Zac Guildford scored Clermont’s only try off an intercept in the second half. The win was achieved the hard way for Clermont after they had flanker Julien Brady red-carded at the end of the first half for head-butting Yannick Caballero.

Racing Metro celebrated their signing of All Blacks star Dan Carter with a three-try 27-8 home win over La Rochelle.