ALBI and Carcassonne will fight it out for pole position in their rescheduled match on Wednesday after overcoming St Gaudens and Pia.
In what should have been the final round of the regular season – before the weather put paid to last week’s clash between the top two – Albi travelled to St Gaudens and came away with a hard-won 36-22 victory after the sides had been locked at 12-12 at the break.
And in an extraordinary match at Stade Albert Domec, Carcassonne edged out Pia 8-6.
The first try, scored by Canaries’ loose-forward Bastien Canet following a drive by Jowasa Drodrolagi, did not come until the 57th minute as both defences held impressively. Herrero’s conversion, adding to his first-half penalty-goal, proved crucial. After intense pressure on the Carcassonne line, Pia’s Hakim Miloudi found a gap out wide to go over with two minutes left, but Alan Baby, who had earlier landed a penalty-goal, missed the difficult conversion.
Carcassonne and Albi will have home semi-finals.
Behind these two, St Estève-XIII Catalan, Pia and Limoux are in contention for third, fourth and fifth spots. All depends on Limoux, who face already-eliminated St Gaudens in their rearranged match on Wednesday.
Maxime Grésèque’s men remained in contention with a 34-26 win at Avignon, though they were caught cold by Avignon, who raced to an 18-0 lead, with secondrow Romain Pourret and hooker Yacin Atba both crossing in their last game for the club and Fabien Jullien also touching down.
But Limoux rallied, pulling back to 18-10 with tries from Romain Puso and Quentin Crunel, and then took control in the second half as Puso and Crunel both added a second try, Bastien Ader also struck twice and Zac Santo chimed in with another.
Sofiane Ghanem scored a late try for Avignon and Pourret fittingly had the last word with his second try of the game.
Villeneuve, already assured of the sixth and last play-off spot, were out-enthused at home to Lézignan, who were already out of the play-offs.
The Leopards started brightly enough, Hamza Bachoukh touching down twice and Jack Aiken also crossing, but Lézignan’s persistence paid off, with Toa Mata’afa and Paul Momirovski scoring the decisive tries in their 28-22 victory.
Toulouse completed a disappointing season, in which they failed to win a match, with a 20-8 home defeat to Villefranche. Wail Skoundri scored Toulouse’s only try as they went in at 8-8 at half-time, after which Villefranche winger Kamaldine Sebea completed his hat-trick in a dominant second-half display.
Results
Avignon 26 Limoux 34
Carcassonne 8 Pia 6
St Gaudens 22 Albi 36
Toulouse 8 Villefranche 20
Villeneuve 22 Lézignan 28
Bye: St Estève-XIII Catalan
Fixtures
Wednesday, April 30
Albi v Carcassonne
Limoux v St Gaudens
Saturday, May 3/Sunday 4
3rd v Villeneuve (6th)
4th v 5th
Table
Albi 48 pts
Carcassonne47 pts
Pia 43 pts
St Estève-XIII Catalan 43 pts
Limoux 40 pts
Villeneuve 37 pts
Villefranche 34 pts
Lézignan 31 pts
St Gaudens 28 pts
Avignon 25 pts
Toulouse 5 pts
