BERNARD JACKMAN’S GRENOBLE took a vital step towards securing their Top 14 status for next season with a superb 32-11 win over Toulouse at Stade des Alpes yesterday.
Following an excellent start to the season, when FCG found themselves in the Champions Cup qualification places, recent months have seen a turnaround in form to the extent that they were beginning to look at the bottom of the table with trepidation.
Such is the competitiveness of the Top 14 that a set of consecutive defeats can swiftly take a club from the top six down towards the bottom of the league. Coming into this weekend, Grenoble found themselves just a single point ahead of the relegation places.
However, yesterday’s excellent result over a Toulouse side that brought strong form with them to Grenoble means Jackman’s men need just a single match point in the final round of fixtures next weekend to guarantee their Top 14 place.
They travel to the already-relegated Lyon on Saturday afternoon, although defeats for Bayonne [at home to La Rochelle] and Brive [at home to Stade Français] would mean Grenoble don’t need any match points.
Stade have been in excellent form this season and are striving for a top two finish, meaning they seem strong contenders to win in Brive, but Bayonne’s desperation to avoid the drop means they will fancy themselves to beat La Rochelle.
Were Grenoble to finish level on match points with Bayonne or Brive, they would be ranked below them in the final table due to the Top 14 tiebreakers, which prioritise the aggregate scores from teams’ head-to-head meetings in that season.
Grenoble can remove all doubt by beating Lyon in Matmut Stadium, though a losing bonus point would get them over the line. Another exciting weekend lies ahead, but if Jackman’s side can produce another performance like yesterday’s, they will certainly see off the challenge of Lyon.
The win over Toulouse ended FCG’s run of four defeats, with out-half Jonathan Wisniewski once again important as he kicked 22 points, adding to the tries scored by Nigel Hunt and Daniel Kilioni.
Defeat for Guy Novès’ side means they drop to fourth in the table before next weekend’s visit of Champions Cup hopefuls Bordeaux. Toulouse did manage to score a superb team try in defeat yesterday, with Florian Fritz finishing the magnificent effort.
I know this is off topic but agureo is out for 3 months after a muscle tear.
Silva went off injured last night as well. My fantasy football team is falling apart.
Sky says its a month. Aguero is one player who shouldn’t be playing and international football outside of major tournaments.
great news, i lost alot of ground last week in fantasy league!
the Liverpool club and fans get excited far to quickly. he could barely do it in the bundesliga with a world class team so how will he do it with average leftover players in a top league. it really is baffling tbh
Could barely do it?? He won it twice with them..
Another United fan far more interested in what Liverpool are doing than that gobbeam LVG
Gavin Mark doesn’t speak for the United fans, Mark is a pretty stupid individual.
Matt also implies here that Germany is not a top league. Silly Matt.
You can criticise Liverpool while still accepting the reality that their manager has a more than decent record.
Louis Van Gaal also had a bad time at Barcelona the second best team of all time.. For 6 seasons Dortmund were 50/50 with Bayern..
This proves my point , Matt clearly stated yesterday that’s he’s a Chelsea fan but because he winds up the bitters he’s automatically classed as a Manu fan ! Now there’s something familiar about that ……
Which begs the question Cian , if things where so great at dortmund why did all the players choose to leave ?????
Gavin Doyle do you not relies by now that L.van Gaal is a spoofer. :-)
Money?
Money Justin. Where did those players go when they left? Bayern- gotze & lewandowski, Kagawa – Utd, sahin- Liverpool, and the fella whose name I can’t remember went to Real Madrid. All places where the money is much better than Dortmund
Sahin actually went to madrid and from there went on loan to liverpool and back to dortmund then…
Cheers fionn
So in other words it not going to matter what he does or wins at Liverpool cause if someone offers to pay players more money they will leave.
Nucky I didn’t see Matt mention Everton at all
Lvg a spoofer??? Have you seen the state of the Dutch team since he left.
Does it have “I’m the one who klopps” on the back of it!!!!
Matt the troll strikes again. Zzzzzzzzzz.
Do they have PL winners 15/16 on the back , well I’m not getting one then
Poor Danno, you must be devastated. I’m sure United will win a game again soon so you can go back to tipping them for the league, but you might have to wait until after Crystal Place away.
Well if its isn’t ‘ the king of the bitters’ ! Ron better to concentrate on your own teams form …. But do not despair ‘The Clairvoyant One’ has spoken …. He’s not making promises but if he’s still there in 4 yrs he’ll have won the league ….. Will I laugh now ….
Danno try taking your own advice & concentrating on your own team
Danno, the irony of you saying “better to concentrate on your own team” to someone ha ha, try taking your own advice..
It’s even funnier when you say it twice