Savea's positional switch at Toulon continues
Toulon picked up a well-timed first win in this season’s Heineken Champions Cup as they triumphed 38-28 over fellow Top 14 outfit Montpellier at Stade Mayol.
A win for Montpellier would have lifted them to at least within a point of Pool Five leaders Edinburgh, but Toulon’s bonus-point victory brings them level with their visitors, two behind Newcastle Falcons and five behind the table-topping Scottish club.
The match was an eight-try thriller, with Toulon confounding their dreadful Top 14 form this season to hand Montpellier a rare defeat.
One of the more eye-catching selections was that of Julian Savea’s ongoing position switch to 12.
That experiment continued today against Montpellier, where he made a respectable 41 metres from 12 carries, beating three defenders on the way.
Savea first moved to 12 for Toulon in November, where and scored first try for his new employers against Perpignan.
https://youtu.be/OtNCVsXjFrM
By Savea’s standards, his time at Toulon has been a relatively barren spell and a positional move at least sees the ball get into the powerful winger’s hands with more regularity.
He was capped by the All Blacks 54 times and scored 46 tries, giving him one of the best try scoring strike rates in international rugby history; yet at Toulon he is yet to pay dividends on the significant investment made in him by his club.
Toulon took a bet on the big winger who had fallen out of favour with the All Blacks and who had a mixed end to his career at the Hurricanes, where he had all but lost the battle for his place with Ben Lam, being forced to move to the opposite wing to accommodate the younger, larger winger.
Known as the ‘The Bus’ by his fans, the 6’2, 104kg wing ended his Hurricanes career with 52 tries to his credit. While his try scoring abilities appear to have waned somewhat, a future making metres in the centre for Toulon makes a certain amount of sense.
Comments on RugbyPass
Thought you’d left us Nick. Good to have you back writing for us. So hunter ikitau works? I reckon wright kellaway as two of the back 3. Tim Ryan and Toole looking good for strike winger but I still want the power of korobeiti and figure our forwards still need him to help them out. Million dollar question is who plays 10? I’m thinking Noah for his kicking and combo with wright. Reckon the pair adds up to an attack and kellaway will help. Can you comment on Zac Lucas in Japan? How is he going?
1 Go to commentsMack Hansen, Ethan Roots, Taine Plumbtree, Louis Lynagh, Emmanuel Meafou? Which country do you want to pick your Barbarians from?
3 Go to commentsInstead of apologising, try to act like an adult, fcknut.
2 Go to commentsLooks like the Force twisted his leg…ahem arm
5 Go to commentsScotland should change their name to the Barbarians
3 Go to commentsThe game was already over leave the bloke alone ….from a Welsh fan 😀👍
2 Go to commentsShamefully the Toulouse players acted like footballers, falling down feigning injury at the slightest knock. About time refs penalised this play acting.
7 Go to commentsAnother non Scot for the anti Scot Townsend. Soon there will be no Scottish born and bred players in the National team.
3 Go to commentsGreat comeback to the playing field by Richie Mo’unga after the loss of his father. A great performance by Richie . I know him well and he is a great guy. On and off the field one of the greatest for the Crusaders. Scott Robertson would have loved him in his All Black’s side. A very missed player and person.
2 Go to commentsYeah nah he comes across as a funny bloke, but that stopped abruptly after the Nutcracker Prince debacle✋
2 Go to commentsAt this point I can’t watch him without thinking he’s a dirty slimebag. He should have been banned for the same amount of time that Quinn was out. It took Tupaea near on a fricking year to get fit enough to play again and his leg will never be the same. The other crap thing is that he was at ABs level and now he has to claw his way back there when he could have had several games under his belt.
5 Go to commentsThe Black Ferns 7’s have been without Captain Sarah Hirini now since Dec 23 in Dubai where she suffered a bad ACL injury - hopefully she is on the road to recovery for Madrid and Paris. Now also have Tyler King and Shiray kaka on the Injured List but the Team still found a way to win in Singapore and claim the overall Title.
1 Go to commentsUtter grub, hope he gets his leg broken. Shocking he is still playing after intentionally breaking quinn tupaeas knee
5 Go to commentsGreat to see NZ 7s teams finally coming into form and playing at the level that is expected of them.
2 Go to commentsChief Cheapshot on the market again.
5 Go to commentsCrusaders went all in to buy Hotham and Kemara staight from Hamilton Boys. Then they picked up Reihana and Hohepa; all have been dropped for superstar Havili, who is a very good fullback, that’s it. Ennor and Goodhue were schoolboy stars too but went backwards at the Crusaders. Maybe they have finally decided to give another poach Levi Aumua the ball?
16 Go to commentsJoe S has some talent to pick from. The Reds loosies look the best in Super? Aus might just give Razor a headache this year. Int. experience v Cantab greenhorn:) Should be fun.
16 Go to commentsEnd to end play, “THE FANS” this game was entertainment of the best. The conditions added to the spectacle.
1 Go to commentsSorry to say, but sadly the sadas were just ordinary and havilli at 10 as an abs selection just won’t cut it. He’s better suited in the centre’s and is a victim of past charge down kicks, he’s too slow under pressure. There’s better talent further north and I don’t mean dmac however I believe razor will sort him out. A feature of his presents on the park is the fact that the guys will follow him.
16 Go to commentsMarler was brilliant throughout both in the scrum and open play. His slap made virtually no contact with Ramos who milked it for a penalty when he could have been a decent sportsman and laughed it off, it was non-violent and shouldn't have been penalised. Smith failed repeatedly to kick when necessary and put up a couple of bombs into the TLS 22 that just handed back possession at key moments to the other side.
3 Go to comments