Biarritz bagged maximum points in their 36-5 win over Ospreys at the Parc des Sports Aguilera on Sunday, keeping their faint hopes of reaching the last eight the Heineken Cup alive.
Taku Ngwenya scored a hat-trick of tries to boost the French club's chances of sneaking into the quarter-final as a group runner-up ahead of the final results from Pool 2.
A brace of tries from the flying winger in the opening ten minutes set them on their way. The first came from just a metre out as he was the beneficiary of a huge overlap on the right hand side and the second was the result of an excellent long-range counter-attack from former England full-back Iain Balshaw.
Both tries were converted by Dimitri Yachvili and the diminutive French scrum-half then added a penalty to stretch the Basque outfit's lead to seventeen points at the halfway point.
The Ospreys' cause was not helped at all when replacement scrum-half Kahn Fotuali'I received a yellow card just five minutes after the restart. And the hosts finally managed to capitalise on their one-man advantage when left winger Benoit Baby crashed over from short range near the left touchline.
Biarritz did not have to wait long to confirm a bonus point either as Balshaw touched down in the corner for the Frenchmen's fourth try of the match.
The visitors did finally record a try of their own just after the hour mark through replacement hooker Richard Hibbard but it was only ever going to be a consolation and Ngwenya completed his hat-trick with another typically powerful finish shortly afterwards.
The scorers:
For Biarritz:
Tries: Ngwenya 3, Baby, Balshaw
Cons: Yachvili 4
Pen: Yachvili
For Ospreys:
Try: Hibbard
Biarritz Olympique: 15 Iain Balshaw, 14 Taku Ngwenya, 13 Charles Gimenez, 12 Damien Traille, 11 Benoît Baby, 10 Julien Peyrelongue, 9 Dimitri Yachvili, 8 Imanol Harinordoquy, 7 Benoit Guyot, 6 Wenceslas Lauret, 5 Manuel Carizza, 4 Jérôme Thion, 3 Sylvain Marconnet, 2 Arnaud Heguy, 1 Fabien Barcella.
Replacements: 16 Romain Terrain, 17 Eusebio Guinazu, 18 Francisco Gomez Kodela, 19 Pelu Taele, 20 Florian Faure, 21 Marcelo Bosch, 22 Ilikena Bolakoro, 23 Dane Haylett-Petty,
Ospreys: 15 Barry Davies, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Andrew Bishop, 12 Ashley Beck, 11 Eli Walker, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Rhys Webb, 8 Jonathan Thomas, 7 Justin Tipuric, 6 Tom Smith, 5 Ian Evans, 4 Ian Gough, 3 Adam Jones, 2 Huw Bennett, 1 Paul James.
Replacements: 16 Richard Hibbard, 17 Ryan Bevington, 18 Aaron Jarvis, 19 Ryan Jones, 20 Joe Bearman, 21 Kahn Fotualii, 22 Matthew Morgan , 23 Shane Williams,
Referee: Wayne Barnes
Comments
damo says...
Tommy Bowe needs to be taken back to Ulster asap, he is too good to be stuck in a team like this, today number 15,12,13 and more were like club players, no team can win a game with no defence at 12,13 its the players fault not the management team, anyone notice Kahn Fotualii spent 14 minutes in the sin bin? Wayne Barnes waited until the Biaritz 4th try was scored before bringing him back on despite a break in play after 11 minutes in the bin. Not the ref only but his display was poor, this game looked like 2 low division club teams and a poor ref at that glad both are out of the competition hopeless
Posted 23:38 22nd January 2012
jontheref says...
Defies belief that the coaches are to remain after this.
Sad.
Posted 19:35 22nd January 2012
damo says...
Worst performance I have ever seen from the Ospreys they didn't try, patethic performance. What is oging on two clubs in turmoil and Ospreys didn't turn up, the players are professional ha, the ref was shocking also, missed so much but not the reason for the fact Ospreys couldn't tackle!!!
Posted 19:28 22nd January 2012
makemehappy says...
Another pathetic Ospreys performance. Now the defence has gone missing too. Defence was crap, selection poor, back move play non-existent - who are the coaching set up sleeping with to remain in post?
Posted 17:40 22nd January 2012