Racing's delight at smash and grab

RACING really needed that. A first win in the Top 14 since they beat Pau on the road in early November.

- JAMES HARRINGTON

A first win under commando manager Patrice Collazo. And, crucially, four league points to move out of the relegation play-off place and up to the heady heights of 11th.

The former charges of Stuart Lancaster staged something of a smash and grab at La Rochelle, racing into a 10-0 opening lead and then taking points whenever they were offered en route to a deserved 21-26 victory – their third win on the road this season.

Zimbabwean back row Shingi Manyarara, in his first Top 14 outing for Racing scored the game’s opening try – and forgotten France international Cameron Woki, switched by Collazo to No.8, added their second 15 minutes into the second half.

La Rochelle really didn’t need that. A fifth defeat in a row, their worst run since March 2019. Despite a brace from replacement hooker Pierre Bourgarit, on his return to action following a lengthy spell on the sidelines with injury, as well as first appearances in a while for Will Skelton and Jonathan Danty, once Racing had stolen a march on them, they never looked like they were about to take control of the game.

Who would have thought, though, that a late mid-season match – it’s still, arguably, a little early to be talking in terms of a run-in, with nine Top 14 rounds left between now and the play-offs – between the seventh-placed side and the one in 13th would freight such importance as this one?

Certainly not the schedulers at French Top 14 broadcaster Canal Plus, who lumped La Rochelle’s round 17 of 26 match against Racing 92 in the four-match mid-Saturday afternoon slot.

It would be wrong to say early 2025 has been the worst of times at La Rochelle – besides Racing and Stade Francais could stake a claim on that epithet. But it’s definitely the needs-improvement of times. Their last win came when they narrowly beat a near-foetal Toulouse 23 at Marcel Deflandre on January 4.