Carter kicks 11 points on birthday

On Saturday, Racing 92 went top on superstar Dan Carter's 33rd birthday with a 38-13 win over Agen as Toulouse again dropped points after a second successive last-gasp conversion blunder.

Racing ran in five tries for the bonus point as they put behind them a shock 13-9 loss to Castres last week.

Carter kicked 11 points but had a mixed day as the All Blacks legend lost the ball in the 23rd minute, an error which allowed George Tilsley to grab a try.

Bernard Le Roux, Virgile Lacombe (twice), Joe Rokocoko and Juandre Kruger all crossed for Racing who had only led 17-10 at the interval against a team battling relegation.

Agen didn't help themselves with their own indiscipline with four players yellow-carded.

Replacement Jean-Baptiste Pejoine charged down a last-gasp Sebastien Bezy conversion from under the posts to earn Brive a draw in a 21-21 stalemate with Toulouse.

It was the second week running Toulouse had missed a crucial conversion with the last kick of the match as Jean-Marc Doussain's failure cost them a draw in a 31-29 defeat at home to Montpellier.

New Zealand international fly-half Luke McAlister's last-minute try after late Toulouse pressure against 14 men looked set to earn a crucial victory for the visitors, with a simple conversion to follow.

But Bezy placed the ball too close to the posts, allowing an alert Pejoine the chance to dart forward and leap into the air to palm the ball down one-handed.

"It was up to me to take it back a bit to try to get it over (the charging defenders)," admitted Bezy.

"When you get that close, everyone's disappointed."

Bordeaux-Begles maintained their hold on fourth place as Australia back Adam Ashley-Cooper scored a hat-trick in a 48-20 victory over rock-bottom Oyonnax.

They were the 31-year-old's first Top 14 tries in his sixth league game.

European champions Toulon saw a three-game winning run ended by La Rochelle in a 19-14 defeat on Sunday that prevented the big-spending club from reclaiming top spot in the Top 14.

The only consolation for Toulon was that a try in the last minute from New Zealand fly-half Tom Taylor allowed them to claim a losing bonus point as they stay third in the table, two points behind leaders Racing.

La Rochelle, on the other hand, are up to ninth, 10 points off the top six which guarantees a play-off spot.

They also scored a single try courtesy of centre Pierre Aguillon in the 70th minute which allowed them to break a 9-9 scoreline at the time.

Australian fly-half Zack Holmes kicked his team's other 14 points.

Holmes' fellow Australian Drew Mitchell was sin-binned on the half-hour mark after a clash with Fijian Levani Botia who was also yellow-carded.

"We lost the match in the first half. We had chances to score from really good positions but there was too much waste," said Toulon forwards coach Jacques Delmas.

"We just weren't capable of scoring. Our kicking game wasn't efficient and there was too much indiscipline."

Champions Stade Francais's miserable season continued as they dropped to third-from-bottom with a 19-12 defeat at Pau.

On Friday night, France wing Noa Nakaitaci scored a hat-trick as Clermont briefly went top with a 45-12 win at Grenoble.

It was a third straight win for Franck Azema's team, for whom former England wing David Strettle, Wales centre Jonathan Davies and replacement scrum-half Enzo Sanga also scored, while Morgan Parra went six from six with the boot.
Source: AFP