Alldritt's out of running for Italy with knee injury

La Rochelle put their recent coronavirus outbreak behind them and briefly moved to the head of the Top 14 with a six-try 40-3 demolition of Bayonne at Stade Marcel Deflandre on Friday evening.

- JAMES HARRINGTON

It was the start of a try-fest weekend, with 33 touchdowns in the opening five games – including nine for Toulouse and seven for Clermont.

The win was hardly unexpected – Bayonne have not won here since 2011 – but the emphatic nature of the final score was particularly impressive. The visitors were still in touch at 7-3 after 30 minutes, but it was 21-3 just ten minutes later. In eight home games, Ronan O’Gara’s side have conceded only four tries, 18 in all Top 14 matches.

The forwards took on the bulk of the try-scoring work. France training camp-bound hooker Pierre Bougarit and back row Gregory Alldritt both scored twice and Bougarit was only denied what would have been his second hat-trick of the season when Bayonne collapsed a maul that was marauding to the try line. The yellow card and penalty try that followed were inevitable.

Bougarit is now the league’s joint leading scorer with eight tries, joining an exclusive front row club. Only Bismarck du Plessis, Marius Tincu, and Dimitri Szarzewski have scored as many tries in a Top 14 season. And he’s only four behind the 12-try record for all forwards held by Louis Picamoles.

Despite playing on Friday, Alldritt will miss France’s ten-day Six Nations training camp in Nice for tests on a niggling knee problem that prompted Les Bleus to provisionally drop him for the Italy game on February 6, and callup Cameron Woki.