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Lancaster era at Racing begins with 'nasty' fourth-minute red card
By Liam Heagney
The Stuart Lancaster era at Racing got off to a dubious start on Saturday when his new team suffered a fourth-minute red card for a crocodile roll. The Parisians were hosting Bordeaux in the opening round of the 2023/24 Top 14 campaign and their pre-season planning under the ex-England boss was given a rude awakening just minutes into the match at La Defense Arena.
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Having worked as senior coach at Leinster since September 2016, Lancaster has now taken up the director of rugby role at Racing but the last thing he would have expected was seeing his team so quickly reduced to 14 men.
The clock was stopped on three minutes and 29 seconds so that the referee Vincent Blasco Baque could review an incident that had taken place at a ruck where ex-French loosehead Jefferson Poirot went foraging for a turnover after Nolann Le Garrec had carried the ball to a ruck.
Bordeaux No1 Poirot was crocodile rolled away from the breakdown by Racing lock Boris Palu and with his left leg crumpling, the play was quickly stopped so that a TMO review could happen.
The match was broadcast live on Premier Sports and this is how their commentator described the stoppage in play that ultimately resulted in Palu getting red-carded and Poirot substituted due to the extent of the injury he suffered:
Ouch … this is awful clearout by Boris Palu = Red Card 🟥#R92UBB | #TOP14 pic.twitter.com/UZRxXR616M
— Brett Igoe (@brettruganalyst) August 19, 2023
“It is Boris Palu who has tackled him [Poirot], it looks like he just bends his leg over as he turns him. There is Poirot going down. I don’t think there is anything particularly foul play but that’s nasty. That is very nasty. That is horrible – that has got ACL written all over it.
“Boris Palu is going to be sent off for dangerous play. It’s one of the new rules that is coming in. They are cracking down on dangerous play in the game. It’s a red card because of the fact that he tackled him and bent his knee back the wrong way.
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“Boris Palu does not understand. It is going to take some understanding of this new rule or this new interpretation of the rule. Poirot has had to come off… it’s not the start that both sides would have wanted.”
Racing went on to cope admirably with being a man down for 76 minutes, going on to win 23-18 with two tries from Le Gerrec.
